A split in the SP-BSP-RLD alliance and the Congress votes may have affected the outcome on at least 10 seats, notwithstanding the accusation that the grand old party cut into the gathbandhan’s votes in Uttar Pradesh.
A close scrutiny of the 2019 poll results indicates that a possible joint opposition Alliance, including the Congress, could have been arithmetically stronger and may have secured more votes than the BJP on 10 more seats. The situation would have remained the same in the rest of the seats in the state.
This becomes evident from the vote share of the SP-BSP-RLD alliance and the Congress put together vis-à-vis the BJP. The SP-BSP-RLD alliance and the Congress together got 45.20% votes against the BJP’s total vote share of 49.56%.
The votes of the Congress and the alliance, if taken together, are however higher than those of the BJP’s winners in Badaun, Banda, Meerut, Barabanki, Dhaurahara, Basti, Sant Kabr Nagar, Sultanpur, Machhlishahar and Firozabad, where Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia) led to split in the votes of the Samajwadi Party.
There are strong possibilities that on these seats the Congress candidates secured non-BJP votes that may have otherwise gone to the alliance. In Badaun, the SP candidate Dharmendra Yadav lost to BJP’s Sangh Mitra Maurya by a margin of 18,454 votes. Yadav may have been a winner if the Congress candidate Salim Iqbal Sherwani’s 51,947 votes were added to his account.
In Banda, SP’s Shyama Charan Gupta lost by a margin of 58,553 votes and his tally would be higher if 75,438 votes secured by the Congress candidate were added to his account. In Meerut, BSP candidate Haji Mohammad Yaqub lost to the BJP by 2,379 votes. If his votes were added to the Congress’s share, the total would be higher than the winner’s votes.
In Barabanki, SP candidate Ram Sagar Rawat lost to the BJP candidate Upendra Singh Rawat by 110,140 votes. Congress candidate Tanuj Punia polled 159,611 votes. Punia is the son of senior Congress leader PL Punia, who lost the seat in 2014. Similarly, BSP candidate Arshad Iliyas Siddiqui lost to BJP candidate Rekha Verma by a margin of 160,601 votes in Dharauhara. Congress candidate and former union minister Jitin Prasada secured 162,856 votes there. The alliance or the Congress candidate would have won the seat if only one of them had contested.
A nearly similar situation prevailed in Basti, Sant Kabr Nagar and Sultanpur. In Machhlishahar, Congress-supported Jan Adhikar Party polled about 7000 votes. If the JAP votes were added to the Alliance’s tally, it would make BSP candidate T Ram a definite winner against the BJP’s Bholanath Saroj, who won by 181 votes. In Firozabad, the split in SP votes led to the victory of the BJP candidate. Samajwadi Party candidate Akshaya Yadav and PSP (L) chief Shivpal Singh Yadav’s votes put together were higher than the votes of the winner.
However, in Saharanpur, the BJP lost to the BSP despite the Congress’s Imran Masood securing about two lakh votes. Did the Congress candidate cut into the BJP’s votes and help the alliance win the seat? Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) spokesman Surendra Rajput said, “Imran Masood has a secular image and he secured votes of all the sections of society. So, the Congress candidate cutting into BJP’s votes in Saharanpur cannot be ruled out.”
During the campaign, Congress general secretary for east UP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra countered accusations that the Congress was cutting into the votes of the alliance. Wherever the Congress candidates were weak, they would cut into BJP votes and not of the alliance, Priyanka had said.
Meanwhile, the UPCC leaders accepted the people’s verdict and said the Congress contested the poll strongly.
“We have strongly fought 2019 Lok Sabha election. We accept the people’s verdict,” said Congress MLA and media coordinator Aradhana Mishra.
First Published:
May 25, 2019 11:37 IST
Source: HindustanTimes