Nation / Fri, 14 Jun 2024 The Indian Express

In BJP’s initial evaluation of LS poll results, 3 possible reasons why it lost ground in UP, Rajasthan, Haryana

“It resulted in the party ignoring warnings from ground-level workers while picking candidates,” said a BJP leader from Rajasthan. Loss of Jat votesThe BJP leaders said the government’s handling of the 2020-’21 farm agitation and the wrestlers’ protests led to “unhappiness and disenchantment” among Jats. The BJP leaders admitted that the Opposition’s campaign on the alleged threat to the Constitution worked against the party. AdvertisementThe BJP leaders said mismanagement during electioneering also contributed to it losing ground. The BJP leaders ruled out any eruption of simmering discontent among the cadre but said the central leadership would have to introspect extensively.

An initial internal assessment of the fall in the BJP’s tally in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Rajasthan points to the consolidation of Jat, Dalit, and Muslim votes behind the Opposition and poor poll management, including the selection of candidates, as reasons that may have contributed to its below-par performance.

Though the BJP has yet to begin its poll review process officially — sources said there would be a “review and assessment of the party’s performance at various levels” before the findings are sent to the central leadership, with the process likely to take months — multiple senior BJP leaders and party insiders The Indian Express spoke to provided an insight into the party’s preliminary evaluation about what may have gone wrong.

These leaders said the above factors, coupled with unemployment and inflation, cost the party 45 seats in these three states. As a result of this poor showing, the BJP lost its sole majority in the Lok Sabha, finishing 32 seats short of the halfway mark of 272 in the 543-member Lok Sabha. The BJP won 62 seats in UP in 2019 but was reduced to 33 in the state, fell from 25 to 14 seats in Rajasthan, and saw its tally halved from 10 to five in Haryana.

The BJP functionaries said the Opposition’s campaign that the Constitution would be under threat if the BJP-led NDA were to win more than 400 seats — “Abki baar 400 paar” was the poll slogan — dented the party. One of them said the central and state-level leadership were confident that the “Ayodhya fervour after the pran pratishtha (consecration) of the Ram Temple and (PM Narendra) Modi ji’s popularity” would negate every disadvantage the party faced. “It resulted in the party ignoring warnings from ground-level workers while picking candidates,” said a BJP leader from Rajasthan. Internal problems derailed election management in UP and Haryana, according to insiders.

Loss of Jat votes

The BJP leaders said the government’s handling of the 2020-’21 farm agitation and the wrestlers’ protests led to “unhappiness and disenchantment” among Jats. “Interestingly, our preliminary assessment is that there was no appreciation or love for the Congress among them, just that they wanted to vote against the BJP and the Congress happened to be the feasible option in Rajasthan and Haryana,” said a party functionary.

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The BJP leaders said Jats in Rajasthan backed the Congress for a long time before starting to shift to the BJP after the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government granted them OBC status in 1999. Five years later, the BJP formed a government on its own in the state for the first time under Vasundhara Raje. Though Jats went back to the Congress for a bit, the community in this belt overwhelmingly supported the BJP in 2014 and 2019. A consolidation of Jats, ex-servicemen, and Dalits helped the BJP sweep this region in the parliamentary elections held in those years. After being named the BJP’s PM candidate in 2014, Modi’s first destination was a rally in Rewari, Haryana, where he addressed a crowd of ex-servicemen and farmers.

But this time, the community’s sentiments against the BJP resulted in the party losing several Jat-dominated seats. In contrast, its UP ally Rashtriya Janata Dal (RLD) won both the seats where it was in the fray: Baghpat and Bijnor. In Muzaffarnagar, a Jat-dominated constituency, former Union Minister Sanjiv Balyan lost to the SP by 24,672 votes. In Haryana, the BJP lost in Jat-dominated seats such as Ambala, Sirsa, Hisar, Sonipat, and Rohtak.

Taking a hit in reserved seats

The party also faced a setback in the Scheduled Caste (SC)-reserved constituencies across the country. Its tally in the 84 SC-reserved seats came down from 46 to 30, while the Congress that won just six such seats last time bagged 20. Among the 47 seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes (STs), the BJP’s tally fell from 31 to 25 while for the Congress it went up from four to 12.

The BJP leaders admitted that the Opposition’s campaign on the alleged threat to the Constitution worked against the party. “The Congress and the Opposition’s move to tweak our 400-plus target slogan damaged us badly,” said a senior BJP leader involved in strategising for the party. “They used it to amplify the alleged objection of both the BJP and the Sangh to the reservation and it worked well. This happened at a time when the BJP lost the steam of its two big campaign points — anti-corruption and anti-dynasty politics — by inducting leaders such as Ajit Pawar and parties such as JD(S) and TDP.”

Poor election management

The absence of an enthusiastic cadre was another reason for the poor show, according to the BJP leaders. “The enthusiasm among the cadre was missing across the states, which resulted in a poor voter turnout in urban constituencies considered to be BJP strongholds. Our initial assessment is there is an 18% fall in the urban votes and it hit the BJP directly,” one of them said.

In Rajasthan, a state that overwhelmingly voted for the BJP in the last Lok Sabha election and the recent Assembly polls, the party’s vote share fell in all the 14 seats it won, except Jaipur.

The BJP leaders said mismanagement during electioneering also contributed to it losing ground. While in Rajasthan, state president C P Joshi was busy with his campaign in Chittorgarh, in Haryana state BJP president Nayab Singh Saini became the CM and state in-charge Biplab Kumar Deb was busy with his contest in Tripura West and was later deployed in Odisha. “There was no coordination and there was no guidance to other leaders in both states,” said a party insider.

In UP, a section of the party blamed a “lack of cooperation from the state administration” while others said the party got candidate selection wrong. The selection process came under criticism in all three states. In Haryana, the induction of leaders from other parties and the decision to field them antagonised the cadre. In Sirsa, the BJP replaced sitting MP Sunita Duggal with Ashok Tanwar who had joined from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) while Ranjit Singh Chautala who joined the party in March was fielded from Hisar. Both lost.

The BJP leaders ruled out any eruption of simmering discontent among the cadre but said the central leadership would have to introspect extensively. “Otherwise, the party will not be prepared to fight the coming Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana, and Jharkhand. The party’s performance in all three states was not up to the expectation. Things may take an unpleasant turn if we do not win those states,” said a senior national BJP leader.