Uttar Pradesh: After gaining victory in UP civic polls, Amit Shah seems to be in state of Euphoria that same thing would be repeated in Gujarat. But, analyzing the results of UP Civic polls, one can easily judge the sentiments against BJP among people, particularly in rural and semi-urban pockets of UP.
Analysing the poll results, it was clear that vote share of BJP has dropped by 10-12% points from the 42% share in UP assembly polls held earlier this year.
Mr. Shah was carried away by the result just seeing Municipal corporation outcome where BJP won 14 out of 16 seats. In the other two tiers of governance i.e. in Municipal Boards and Nagar Panchayats, the BJP had lost considerable vote share. This fact contradicts the claim of Amit Shah that people endorsed demonetisation and GST.
In the elections to the Nagar Panchayats, the BJP suffered heavy losses, while the independent candidates captured 182 out of 438 posts. BJP got 100, Samajwadi Party 83, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) 45 and the Congress 17.
Out of the total 652 posts of three tiers, the BJP got just 184 posts. How can it claim that BJP sweeped the Civic polls???
In western UP, BJP suffered heavy losses in Tier II and Tier III civic bodies. Chief Minister Yogi tried to polarise Hindu votes by starting his campaign from Ayodhya but it did not had much effect. In western UP, the BJP had got about 44% of the votes in the assembly polls earlier this year. The BSP ended up bagging the mayor’s post in Meerut and Aligarh. BJP’s vote share in the tier 3 of western UP may have dropped to less than 25%.
Considering the Civic poll results, BJP may feel happier that same trend would be continuing in Gujarat, but the political atmosphere is always changing and recent opinion poll results indicate that BJP and Congress are in neck to neck fight with Congress consistently gaining support from the people, especially in rural and semi-urban pockets where the sentiments are in favour of Congress.