Uttar Pradesh Assembly By-Election Results 2024: UP CM Yogi Adityanath Asserts Authority With 7-2 Victory; ’Batenge to Katenge' To Remain Central Theme

Lucknow, November 23: The 7-2 result in the bypolls to nine assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh in favour of the BJP reasserted Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's political authority in the state's politics, especially after the recent reverses in Lok Sabha polls.

At the same time, the Congress not contesting and the BSP's yet another below-par show meant that despite losing ground, the Samajwadi Party continues to dominate the opposition space in the most populous state. UP By-Election Results 2024: CM Yogi Adityanath Credits PM Narendra Modi for BJP’s Win in Uttar Pradesh, Says INDIA Bloc’s ‘Loot and Lies Politics Coming To End’.

The results were immaterial from the issue of the UP BJP government's stability and yet much pride was at stake, especially for the ruling party as the bypolls were the first electoral test of the BJP-led-NDA and INDIA bloc after the 2024 Lok Sabha polls in which the opposition had limited the BJP to its worst show in UP since 2014. The saffron party had won 33 seats, while the SP had emerged on top with 37 seats out of 80.

In each of the seven assembly seats that the BJP won on Saturday, all the winning candidates were unanimous that Adityanath and his call for unity were a "big factor" in their victory.

That's why even before the Election Commission officially confirmed the byelection results, a confident Adityanath arrived at the UP BJP office in Lucknow around 3.30 pm on Saturday to reiterate the importance of “ek hain toh safe hain" and "batenge toh katenge" (united we are safe, divided we perish)' – slogans that virtually became a call for Hindu unity to counter's the opposition's "caste politics" in the mini-polls. PM Modi Address to BJP Workers Live Streaming: Watch Video of PM Narendra Modi Addressing ‘Karyakartas’ After Maharashtra, Jharkhand Assembly Elections Results 2024.

Through his "batenge toh katenge' slogan that Adityanath first raised in August and which set the narrative for the bypolls, the BJP upped the ante with its cadres explaining the slogan's underlying “Hindu unity” content during its door-to-door contact campaigns.

“During our interactions, we urged the masses to not get divided on caste lines and vote as one. The ‘batenge toh katenge' and ‘ek rahenge toh safe rahenge' slogans raised by our leaders helped in driving the message home quickly,” a BJP leader told PTI.

The Muslim-dominated Kundarki assembly seat in west UP's Moradabad was a test case for BJP's Hindu unity plank, mainly because it had not won the seat since 1993. The BJP's campaign pitch in the bypolls largely revolved around “Ram aur Rashtra (religious unity and nationalism)” – the twin poll planks tailored to blunt the opposition Samajwadi Party's hope of consolidating its OBC-Dalit-Muslim voter push.

Not surprisingly then, Adityanath during his brief media interaction at the UP BJP office chose to describe BJP's Kundarki win as a success of "rashtrawaad (nationalism)". “On this seat, the BJP's first win since 1993 was possible as people unitedly backed BJP while the opposition's caste ploy fell flat,” a senior BJP leader said.

“The presence of 11 Muslim candidates in the fray there didn't help the opposition SP either. So while their vote was divided we could secure our vote and in this cleverly crafted unity slogans by our leaders played a big role in setting the narrative,” this BJP leader from Kundarki told PTI. Kundarki winner Ramvir Singh claimed that Muslims also voted for the BJP. “Muslims trust me and that showed in the massive vote I received from them. I will keep their trust intact,” he said.

Another seat with an impressive Muslim presence that the SP lost was the Meerapur assembly seat. Here, SP's Sumbul Rana, daughter-in-law of former MP Kadir Rana, lost to RLD's Mithilesh. Here also the split in Muslim votes cost the SP as two Muslim candidates including one from AIMIM polled 41,000 votes, more than the victory margin of BJP.

In the Katehari assembly seat of Ambedkarnagar, it was BJP's first win since 1991. This was a seat whose responsibility Adityanath had assumed and thus this win too has its own importance. The confidence from the byelection win showed in Adityanath's interaction as he pointedly referred to SP's reduced win margins in Sisamau seat in Kanpur Dehat and Karhal assembly segment of Mainpuri since the 2022 UP polls when SP had won both the seats.

“If you look, in Sisamau the SP's win margin was around 8000 votes, markedly less than 12000 vote win in 2022 while in Karhal seat the SP won by 67000 odd votes in 2022, the victory margin was 14000 odd votes. Next time as Keshav ji (deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya) said, we will win Karhal too,” Adityanath said.

The reference to Karhal was important as it is a SP bastion from where SP chief Akhilesh Yadav had won. The BJP had put up Akhilesh's relative Anujesh Yadav in the bypolls and was successful in reducing the victory margin of Akhilesh's nephew Tej Pratap by making it a ‘Yadav vs Yadav' election.

However the fact that in almost all the seats it was a straight BJP vs SP contest meant that SP will continue to dominate the opposition space in Uttar Pradesh. More so, as in the absence of Congress and a lacklustre BSP campaign, this election was reduced to a virtual bipolar contest.

While Adityanath has stressed on ‘batenge toh katenge and ek rahenge toh safe rahenge', SP chief Akhilesh Yadav's first post-result assertion to cadre ‘judenge toh jeetenge (united we win)' only meant that in the run up to 2027 UP polls, both sides would hold on to their respective strategies.

“The BJP knew it was losing all nine seats, that is why all the official machinery was deployed to win the polls any which way. The force had orders to prevent Muslims from casting their vote,” SP chief Akhilesh Yadav alleged. The BJP also retained Khair, Phulpur, Ghaziabad and Majhawan seats.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)