In the Uttar Pradesh by-elections, Akhilesh Yadav’s PDA ticket has completely failed in the face of Yogi Adityanath’s new slogan ‘Bantenge to Katenge’.
This slogan of Yogi Adityanath may have been ineffective in Jharkhand, but it has worked wonders in Maharashtra. If you see, the same thing happened with Akhilesh Yadav in UP, which happened with Uddhav Thackeray in Maharashtra: the Lok Sabha results had filled Akhilesh Yadav with extreme confidence. Yogi Adityanath had cited overconfidence as the reason for the BJP’s defeat in the Lok Sabha elections; However, the score was settled in the by-elections.
In the 2022 UP Assembly elections, the Samajwadi Party won seats in Karhal, Sisamau, Katehari and Kundarki. Akhilesh Yadav himself won the elections from Karhal, but later came to Lok Sabha from Kannauj.
The Meerapur assembly seat was held by Jayant Chaudhary’s RLD party, which quit the Samajwadi Party and joined the BJP. The BJP had captured Phulpur, Ghaziabad, Majhwan and Khair seats in 2022.
Akhilesh Yadav had fielded candidates for all nine seats and the Congress had supported him. The Congress had not given its support out of curiosity, but had taken this step out of anger at having won fewer seats; What was special was that Akhilesh Yadav had also taken this step out of anger for not getting attention in the Haryana elections.
But after the results are out, it seems that the lack of support from the Congress has cost Akhilesh Yadav dearly. If they had understood earlier that “if you divide, you will be divided”, then this situation could have been avoided.
Wouldn’t it be detrimental for the SP to be in Congress?
The collaboration of Akhilesh Yadav and Rahul Gandhi turned out to be a profitable deal for the first time in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. It was also clear from the election results that if the Samajwadi Party and the Congress contest the elections together and are able of guaranteeing the transfer of each person’s votes, then definitive success can be achieved.
If ‘Bantenge to Katenge’ has a message for Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav, then the Maharashtra election results are also teaching a big lesson to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi – and in the case of the INDIA block, Rahul Gandhi should also understand that “if then you are safe.
A family more trustworthy than a Muslim voter
The result of the Kundarki assembly, Moradabad headquarters, also gives some special indications. In Kundarki, Yogi Adityanath’s Bante to Katenge slogan has had such an impact that the BJP has been able to recover from the pain of defeat after three decades. BJP candidate Thakur Ramveer Singh defeated Samajwadi Party’s Haji Rizwan.
What is surprising is that all this has been possible when Kundarki has around 64 per cent Muslim population. Now it seems that if the Congress had supported the Samajwadi Party, this situation would not have happened.
Karhal and Sisamau’s results have somehow tried to save respect. Kundarki is definitely an exception, but the Samajwadi Party only benefits from family and Muslim votes. Tej Pratap Yadav has given away the vacant Karlah assembly seat due to Akhilesh Yadav’s resignation from the family.
Just before the end of the campaign for the by-elections, Akhilesh Yadav had written in a long post on the social site Yes, these are the upcoming elections that will decide the future course of Uttar Pradesh.
But the by-election results show a different trend for both Akhilesh Yadav and Rahul Gandhi.
