New Delhi, March 10: Bulldozing a resurgent rainbow coalition led by the Samajwadi Party, the BJP Thursday stormed back to power in Uttar Pradesh, and also retained Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa, while Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP scripted a stellar victory in Punjab, winning a three-fourth majority pulverising its rivals.
As the BJP retained its grip on the four states, futher fortifying its positions ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Aam Aadmi Party wrested Punjab from the Congress, which lay shorn of power in yet another state, adding to a string of electoral losses. A debilitated Congress now rules only Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.
The spectacular rise of AAP outside Delhi, with an unprecedented mandate in Punjab and a toehold in Goa where it bagged two seats, analysts said, foretells a big likely churn in the opposition camp.
The outcome of the assembly polls, seen as a barometer to gauge people’s mood ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, had the Congress’ epitaph written all over. The party not only lost Punjab miserably, with both the state’s Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi and party chief Novjot Singh Sidhu biting the dust, it could win only two seats in UP notwithstanding the high-decibel campaign by the Gandhi siblings Rahul and Priyanka.
In the 403-member Uttar Pradesh assembly, the BJP has won 251 seats, 49 more than the halfway mark of 202, and is leading in 3 more, while its ally Apna Dal (S) clinched 12.
The Samajwadi Party of Akhilesh Yadav, which many expected would pose a stiff challenge to the BJP, fared way better than the 2017 assembly polls when it had secured 47 seats, but failed to unseat the BJP.
The SP has won 106 constituencies and is leading in 6 more. Its ally Rashtriya Lok Dal of Jayant Chaudhary has pocketed eight seats and Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party of Om Prakash Rajbhar, a former minister in the Adityanath government who joined hands with SP just ahead of the polls, won 6. However, in a setback to the party, Rajbhar himself lost by a staggering over 45,000 votes in Fazilnagar.
The BSP of Mayawati, a four-time chief minister, was all but obliterated with just one seat despite polling 12.87 per cent votes.
The AAP’s broom swept away its rivals in Punjab where it won 92 of the 117 seats, Congress 18, SAD 3, BJP 2, BSP and Independent won one seat each. In terms of vote share, the AAP won 42 per cent of the total votes cast, as against 23.7 per cent it had five years ago.
The elections dealt a body blow to the Shiromani Akali Dal, which ruled the state several times, as its chief Sukhbir Singh Badal and his father Parkash Singh Badal, both former chief ministers, fell by the wayside.
Chief Minister Channi lost both seats he contested, and former chief minister Amarinder Singh, who left the Congress to join hands with the BJP was also defeated.
In Uttarakhand, the BJP was all set to form a second successive government, the first in the state’s 21-year history. The saffron party clinched 47 seats, 11 more than the magic figure of 36, with a vote share of 44.34 per cent.
However, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami lost his Khatima seat, forcing the BJP to jog its mind and find a suitable candidate for the top post.
The Congress won 18 seats with a vote share of 37.91 per cent, while others secured five seats.
Harish Rawat, a former chief minister and Congress heavyweight, could not pilot the party’s return to power in the state nor could he save his own seat of Lalkuwa.
In Goa, the ruling BJP is short of the majority mark by just one seat as it bagged 20 seats in the 40-member Assembly.
The Congress has been confined to 11 seats, AAP won two seats, Goa Forward Party one, Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party two, Revolutionary Goans Party won one, while three seats were won by Independent candidates.
The saffron party won a simple majority in insurgency-hit Manipur, where it bagged 32 seats, having won 37.83 per cent votes. Its partners in the North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA), the Northeastern version of the NDA— the NPP and NPF — which fought separately, secured 7 and five seats respectively, while Bihar ally Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) won 6 seats. (To be updated)