Play all audios:
There may well be several reasons for the BJP to underperform like this in a state where it has dominated so much over the past decade, both in parliamentary and assembly polls. Firstly,
this is the first time since the Modi-Shah juggernaut started gathering momentum in 2014 that it has met a serious political challenge posed by the rejuvenated opposition alliance led by
Akhilesh Yadav and Rahul Gandhi. With their backs to the wall, the duo put up a far more spirited and united battle than in previous elections over the past few polls and managed to overcome
their handicap in money, muscle, and organisational resources in a replay of the David versus Goliath battle. The BJP’s hitherto successful strategy to string together a wide-ranging
electoral coalition of upper, middle, and backward castes, along with a section of Dalits, also fell apart in these elections. With Akhilesh actively wooing the backward castes and Rahul
Gandhi appealing to Dalits to save Babasaheb Ambedkar’s Constitution from being amended by a brute majority BJP dictatorship and Muslims consolidating behind the INDIA bloc, the ruling party
was, for the first time in a decade, completely outmanoeuvred on the electoral turf. There is also persistent speculation in political and media circles that both the RSS cadre in Uttar
Pradesh and the powerful Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath did not back the BJP and the Prime Minister wholeheartedly. After all, during the inauguration of the Grand Ram Temple a few months
ago, television cameras just focussed on Modi, pointedly ignoring the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, and one cameraman who showed Yogi for five seconds was later reportedly fired. It is also
interesting that while the BJP languished in the Ayodhya and Varanasi divisions, it won virtually all the seats in the Gorakhpur division, which is the home bastion of the monk Chief
Minister. Others, however, point out that despite his reported distance from both the Prime Minister Modi and the Home Minister Amit Shah, Yogi strenuously campaigned across Uttar Pradesh
during the elections, and there was no question of internal sabotage. As for the RSS, notwithstanding a certain degree of disquiet in the Nagpur-based organisation about the personality cult
built by Modi, the top leadership is known to play safe and not take risks that could topple the entire saffron apple cart. Yet, individual RSS leaders and activists disenchanted with a BJP
compromised by political defectors and moneybags may not have made the concerted effort required to get the party across the winning line in several constituencies. _(The writer is a
Delhi-based senior journalist and the author of ‘Behenji: A Political Biography of Mayawati’. This is an opinion piece. The views expressed above are the author’s own. THE QUINT neither
endorses nor is responsible for the same.)_