INDIA shining: How the alliance’s satraps beat the BJP on their home turf
Trinamool Congress fought each other, Mamata Banerjee’s party increased its seat count by seven to 29 (including leads). In Tamil Nadu, the alliance was leading in all the 39 seats (including leads) with the DMK at the forefront again. While the political chaos in Maharashtra meant the elections would be unpredictable, it is Uttar Pradesh, at the heart of the BJP’s big Ram Mandir pitch, that has thrown up the biggest surprise.
The Ram Mandir was not the primary election issue, as the BJP had hoped it would be, and as Mint had reported last month. Indeed, most voters across states, and more specifically Uttar Pradesh, did not cite the Ram Mandir as an election issue. The BJP’s overreliance on what it believed to be its trump card clearly has not paid off.
In the end, the unkindest cut for the BJP came from Ayodhya. The saffron party lost to the SP in the Faizabad seat, of which Ayodhya is a part. This is despite building the Ram temple, an airport, a railway station and an expressway; despite the temple corridor, five-star hotels and the influx of tourists and the money they brought along; and despite the Yogi Adityanath government’s focus on law and order and a slew of welfare schemes both from the Centre and the state.
What happened in the constituency mirrored the disaffection for the BJP across the state. In a sense, 2024 has turned out to be more like a traditional Indian election, where constituencies and local factors matter as much as national narratives, unlike in 2014 and 2019, when the only question was if Narendra Modi should be prime minister. There are four big takeaways for the BJP this election.
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