Ghosi bypoll: Why BJP lost its first electoral battle with ‘INDIA’ in UP
The BJP‘s Dara Chauhan was seen as a party-hopper and ‘outsider’; his SP rival gained from the BSP’s absence
The Ghosi assembly bypoll has delivered a shock defeat to the ruling BJP in Uttar Pradesh. Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate Sudhakar Singh defeated the BJP‘s Dara Singh Chauhan by 42,759 votes. Chauhan, as the sitting MLA, had quit the SP in July to join the saffron camp, necessitating the bye-election.
The defeat is also an embarrassment for NDA partner O.P. Rajbhar‘s Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party as the constituency has a significant number of Rajbhar community voters.
For the Opposition ‘INDIA’ bloc, the victory is a shot in the arm, this being their first electoral encounter with the BJP since the formation of the alliance. What helped the Opposition was that the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Congress did not field candidates. While the Congress declared support for the SP candidate, BSP supremo Mayawati had appealed to voters to choose the NOTA (None of the Above) option in the voting machine.
It was anticipated that Chauhan, an OBC leader, would find a berth in the Yogi Adityanath cabinet if he won the bypoll. That seems difficult now. Here are some of the factors behind the BJP’s loss:
Discontent against Chauhan: There appears to be discontent against Chauhan on the ground for switching party loyalties and forcing elections. Chauhan was a minister in the first term of Adityanath in 2017. Before the 2022 assembly election, he switched to the SP to win the Ghosi seat by over 22,000 votes against the BJP’s Vijay Kumar Rajbhar. A source in the BJP claimed the public anger was against Chauhan and not the ruling party.
Local vs outsider: That Sudhakar Singh was a local politician worked in his favour. He lives in the constituency and has won the seat earlier. Chauhan, on the other hand, used to contest from Madhuban assembly seat and got the Ghosi ticket on joining the SP. The perception was that Singh would be available to the electorate while Chauhan was an ‘outsider’.
BSP’s silence helped ‘INDIA’: That the BSP did not field a candidate boosted the ‘INDIA’ front’s chances. Political analyst Dr Shilp Shikha Singh, who teaches at Lucknow’s Giri Institute of Development Studies, says: ”Had the BSP entered the fray, things may have been different because the party has a core base in Ghosi. It seems a large chunk of the Dalit vote went to Sudhakar Singh. The BJP would be alarmed by this trend of BSP votes going to ‘INDIA’ in the absence of a party nominee.”