UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav speaking on Tuesday
Hours after Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav tweeted about "drawing inspiration for 2017, no matter what the outcome" of by-polls in the state, early trends brought heartening news for his Samajwadi Party. (
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The Samajwadi party won six of 11 assembly seats vacated by the BJP and its ally and was leading in three others.
"The people of UP have rejected communal forces. We will continue to work for development issues," said the Chief Minister, whose father Mulayam Singh Yadav heads the Samajwadi Party.
The trends are worrying for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP in a state where the party scripted its biggest success story just four months ago. (
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In the national election, BJP won 71 of the state's 80 Lok Sabha seats, leaving just five for the Samajwadi Party and two for the Congress. The party credited its victory to its master strategist Amit Shah, who was rewarded with the post of BJP president in July.
All 11 assembly seats in the by-polls were won by the BJP and its ally in the 2012 assembly polls. That it is slipping in these seats is a neon sign that the BJP's strategy is faltering in assembly constituencies. The next assembly polls are three years away, in 2017.
If the BJP fails to repeat its spectacular performance of May, a large part of the blame could go to its four-time MP Yogi Adityanath, who was the party's star campaigner for the by-polls. (
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Adityanath's controversial speeches on "Love Jihad" - a term used by rightwing groups to describe what they believe is an Islamist strategy to seduce and convert Hindu women - contrasted sharply with the BJP's careful retreat from the strident pro-Hindu agenda that is associated with its ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and other groups linked to it.
The BJP, however, made no apparent move to rein in the firebrand saffron-robed leader. Critics accuse the party of leaning on the 'Love Jihad' campaign to polarise voters.