EVM glitches in SP, RLD strongholds dangerous trend for democracy, says Akhilesh Yadav

Stating that the Central government had failed on all fronts, Akhilesh had on Saturday attacked the Narendra Modi administration on its fourth anniversary. He alleged that the four years of the BJP-led government at the Centre have come as “immense disappointment” to the people. “Raajneeti mein bhrashtachar ka khel, Banking system hua fail. Petrol, diesel ke daam uchhtam, Dollar ke mukable Rupee nyuntam. Desh se ghotalebaaz faraar, videshon me dikhave ka karaar. Menhgai pe GST ki maar. Dalit, gareeb, mahila par vaar. Kisan, berozgar, karobari behaal, Mubarak hon ye chaar saal (game of corruption in politics, banking system is failed… petrol and diesel price are at the highest, rupee price is at the lowest… Those involved in scams have left the country. There is the GST blow over inflation. Attack on Dalits, poor and women. Farmers, unemployed and businessmen are in pain… Congratulations on these four years),” he tweeted.

In 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had won 71 seats with SP, BSP, Congress, RLD and Apna Dal getting five, zero, two, zero and two seats, respectively in the state. In the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections in 2017, SP had joined hands with the Congress. Both, Akhilesh and Rahul Gandhi had campaigned extensively, but the alliance tasted defeat with SP and Congress winning 47 and seven seats, respectively. The BJP had sweeped the polls with 312 seats out of 403 seats.

Earlier this year, SP and BSP joined hands just before the Gorakhpur and Phulpur bye-elections and handed the Bharatiya Janata Party a crushing defeat in Uttar Pradesh. While SP candidate Nagendra Pratap Singh Patel registered a resounding win over BJP’s Kaushlendra Singh Patel by a margin of 59,460 votes in Phulpur, SP candidate Praveen Nishad defeated BJP’s Upendra Dutt Shukla by 21,961 votes to win Gorakhpur Lok Sabha seat. This also worked as an experiment for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

BSP chief Mayawati had also made it clear that the tie-up with the Samajwadi Party would continue until 2019 asserting that such an alliance was necessary to “rout the common and bigger adversary, the Bharatiya Janata Party”. “The BSP is of the view that if the SP and the BSP could unite, they can target 43 per cent of the voters in Uttar Pradesh, a count that would be enough to defeat the BJP in 2019 Lok Sabha elections,” a senior BSP leader had told The Indian Express.

In Kairana, where polling took place on Monday, the SP, BSP, Congress and RLD fielded a common candidate — Tabassum Hasan.

What happens if SP and BSP form an alliance in 2019 Lok Sabha polls

An analysis of constituency wise data from the 2017 Assembly elections, the latest in the state, shows the NDA could lose as many as 50 of its 73 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh if SP and BSP votes are combined. SP-BSP could win at least 57 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats, and the BJP-Apna Dal only 23.

The SP and BSP contested both 2014 and 2017 separately. The SP won five seats and BSP zero in 2014; in the Assembly elections, the SP won 47 seats and the BSP 19 in the 403-member House. The SP had an alliance with the Congress in 2017, which won seven seats. The BJP and its allies, Apna Dal and Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party, won 325 Assembly seats.

Opposition parties over the past few weeks have renewed efforts to form a coalition of sorts in a bid to defeat the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. In Karnataka, at HD Kumaraswamy’s swearing-in ceremony, leaders from different political parties including Akhilesh Yadav, Mayawati, Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, N Chandrababu Naidu and Mamata Banerjee were seen together on stage.

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