By-elections have different importance, but not as much as elections held every five years. By-elections for 9 seats in Uttar Pradesh will be held on November 20, and its importance can be easily understood by the way the ruling BJP and the opposition Samajwadi Party have united day and night in UP.
Samajwadi leader Akhilesh Yadav’s PDA recipe has proven successful in the Lok Sabha elections, but only the by-election results will decide whether it was a mere coincidence or actually the result of a political experiment.
And similarly, the effect of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s latest slogan ‘Bantenge to Katenge’ has been seen till the Jharkhand and Maharashtra elections, but the bigger question is whether it will have any effect in the by-elections of the UP.
Yogi and Akhilesh continued to fight throughout the election campaign.
In the UP campaign for the by-elections, the division of the country was mentioned several times between leaders of the SP and BJP parties. While Yogi Adityanath mentioned the partition of the country in Aligarh, Akhilesh Yadav in his social media post described it as “the most difficult by-election since independence”.
Recalling the partition of the country at a meeting in Aligarh, Yogi Adityanath said that the Muslim League, which laid the foundation for the partition of the country in 1906, was established in Aligarh itself. He said that the people of Aligarh did not allow the Muslim League to function, but their intention to divide the country communally was successful.
Yogi Adityanath said: The Muslim League was not established in Karachi, Islamabad or Dhaka… This dangerous intention is not over yet… At that time the Muslim League was doing the work of dividing the society, now the Samajwadi Party is doing the same job. It has been… Thousands of innocent people were killed in the partition of the country in 1947.
Looking at the election campaign, it seems that the results of the by-elections are going to decide the conditions and direction of the 2027 assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. If you look at the latest campaigns of SP and BJP leaders, Yogi Adityanath held 15 rallies and roadshows in five days, while Akhilesh Yadav held 14 public meetings and roadshows.
A special thing, and an hour before the end of the election campaign, Akhilesh Yadav wrote in a long post on X: ‘Dear migrants and voters, Uttar Pradesh will witness the toughest by-elections since independence. These are not by-elections, these are elections that will decide the future course of Uttar Pradesh.
The real test of ‘Bantege to Katenge’ will be in UP
As a star activist of the BJP, Yogi Adityanath had to take charge in Maharashtra and Jharkhand as well. Perhaps that is why the UP Chief Minister had already deployed his cabinet colleagues to the front. Three ministers each in a seat in the assembly and the command is in their hands. Both were outside Deputy CM Yogi Adityanath’s team.
Apart from UP, if the BJP managed to make the infiltrators issue an electoral issue in Jharkhand, then Yogi Adityanath had a huge contribution. Especially about their new motto. Even before the election campaign began, Yogi Adityanath had uttered the slogan “Bantenge to Katenge” in Agra, citing the events in Bangladesh.
Of course, posters with slogans of Yogi Adityanath were put up in UP and also in Maharashtra. But for Yogi Adityanath, the most important thing is the UP by-elections. Although Deputy CM Ajit Pawar and some BJP leaders in Maharashtra openly opposed Yogi Adityanath’s slogan, its effect has already been seen in the Haryana Assembly elections.
Talking about opposition, once UP Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya also distanced himself from Yogi Adityanath’s slogan but later said that he would support Yogi Adityanath’s slogan ‘Bantenge to Katenge’ along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. We also support the new motto of ‘Ek. Hain toh sure hain’.
According to the BJP, the results of Maharashtra and Jharkhand will also be important, but for Yogi Adityanath, the UP by-election results are more important. After the Lok Sabha election results, Yogi started taking Adityanath’s opponents to the dock, but then fell silent. Although they remained silent, the noise has not stopped: Yogi Adityanath also knows that the results of the by-elections will be the answer to all the questions. As long as the answers to the questions are written correctly on the answer sheet.
