“The accusation by our opponents that we try to polarise votes as an election strategy was laid to rest in the Lok Sabha elections”
IANS/New Delhi
The Bharatiya Janata Party, which suffered a setback in by-elections in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday, distanced itself yesterday from the “love jihad” campaign.
“As far as ‘love jihad’ is concerned, it may have been raised by a few local leaders but the BJP as a party has never endorsed it,” party spokesman Sambit Patra said when asked if the by-election result indicated that people were disillusioned with the party deviating from its development plank for a campaign led by its MP Yogi Adityanath.
The party lost eight of 11 seats in the assembly by-elections in the northern state.
Patra said “love jihad” was not a part of the Uttar Pradesh BJP’s resolution adopted in Vrindavan last month.
“The accusation by our opponents that we try to polarise votes as an election strategy was laid to rest in the Lok Sabha elections, when people emphatically rejected the claim that BJP is not a secular party and hence should not be voted to power,” Patra added.
The Congress, however, said the results on Tuesday indicated a “dramatic reversal” of people’s view on the BJP’s Hindutva ideology.
“It is a defeat of Yogi Adityanath’s brand of communal politics. Love jihad is an insidious, orchestrated strategy to divide communities with the backing of the RSS. But the defeat of eight sitting BJP MLAs in Uttar Pradesh signals a dramatic reversal of people’s view on the Hindutva agenda pursued by it,” Congress spokesman Sanjay Jha said.
In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP lost eight of the 11 seats which it had won with its ally Apna Dal in the 2012 assembly elections. Tuesday’s result was in stark contrast to the BJP’s tally of 71 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats from Uttar Pradesh in the general elections in May.
The Congress said the BJP’s repeated defeats in by-elections were a clear indication that “Modi wave” is over in only 100 days of the party’s government.
“It marks the end of the manufactured Modi wave. The susceptible downslide of the BJP is evident not just in yesterday’s results but from the earlier results in Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh,” Jha said.
This is the third time the BJP has suffered reverses in by-elections since Narendra Modi came to power riding on the back of a massive mandate in the April-May Lok Sabha polls.
In the first round of by-elections held in Uttarakhand after the general elections, the Congress won all the three assembly seats, while in the second round of, the BJP lost six of the 10 assembly seats in Bihar.
Gujarat, where Modi was the chief minister for 13 years, too offered a jolt for the saffron party on Tuesday, with Congress wresting three seats from the BJP.
Congress leader from the state Shaktisinh Gohil attributed it to Modi’s neglect of farmers under a facade of “vibrant” Gujarat.
“Farmers are a neglected community in Gujarat. Their issues have always been neglected under a facade of vibrant Gujarat,” Gohil said, adding that Modi’s 100 days in government showed he was not able to realise the dreams he sold to people.
Patra refuted the claim.
“By-polls are fought on local issues and may not be seen as people’s reflection on the national discourse in politics,” he said.
In Mumbai, the Shiv Sena described the by-election results as an “unexpected shock and surprise” and said there are lessons to be learnt from it for the forthcoming Maharashtra assembly elections.
“Don’t take the voters for granted... They are very intelligent. Keep your feet on the ground and don’t indulge in sword-fights from the air... Otherwise, the people will skin you,” the party said in an oblique reference to its ally BJP in an article in the party organ Saamana.
“This was entirely unexpected, a shock and a surprise for all,” said the article.
