Giving caste numbers, BJP finds holes in opposition’s ‘vote transfer’ claims

NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is seeing a silver lining in its defeats in Kairana and Noorpur by-polls in Uttar Pradesh, saying it can give the Opposition alliance a good run for its money as the latter did not get as many votes as they should have for thumping wins as per arithmetic. Plus in 2019, the BJP will have the “PM’s face” to cover the deficit, party leaders say.

The analysis of these by-poll results by the BJP shows that while the Samajwadi Party, the BSP and the RLD (fighting separately then) had together polled 1,14,510 votes in Noorpur in 2017 assembly elections, their combined candidate got only 94,866 votes this time, almost 20,000 less, though he won. On the other hand, BJP candidate Avni Singh polled 10,000 more votes now (89,188) than her late husband did in 2017 (79,172) to win the seat.

“The narrow win by less than 5,000 votes should worry the Opposition more in the context of 2019,” a BJP leader said. In Kairana, the three opposition parties together polled 5.32 lakh votes in 2014 which dropped to 4.81 lakh votes in 2018.

BJP candidate Mriganka Singh polled 4.36 lakh votes compared to her father Hukum Singh who had polled 5.65 lakh votes in 2014, hence dropping far more than the Opposition did. But BJP leaders claim this is because many of their voters did not come out to vote given that the polling percentage was far lesser at 55% than at 74% in 2014.

“The Opposition’s win should have been by more than 1.5 lakh votes if Jats, Muslims and Dalits had all voted for the alliance. They expected a much bigger win than by just 44,000 votes. The vote share difference between us of about 5% can be easily extinguished in 2019 when PM Narendra Modi will be the face of the election and our voters come out like they did in 2014 general elections,” a BJP functionary told ET.

A Samajwadi Party leader however pointed out to ET that UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath did rallies in both the constituencies but the BJP still lost three out of the five assembly segments in Kairana, including Thana Bhawan and Nukur which are represented by its ministers Suresh Rana and Dharam Singh Saini, respectively. “Just to blame this loss on lower turnout of BJP voters is like the party unit in UP trying to save its skin now. Why couldn’t sugarcane minister Suresh Rana deliver in his own assembly segment?” a SP leader asked.

While state BJP leaders have blamed “polarisation pitch” of the Opposition alliance as being responsible for their win, SP leaders say the BJP has no right to cry foul after raking up the 2013 Muzzafarnagar riots and Kairana exodus in these elections. On the other side, there is concern in the BJP over the UP unit’s inability to bring out party’s voters to the polling booth in by-elections, as was the case in Phulpur and Gorakhpur as well.