LUCKNOW:  Traversing through different phases of age and earning distinctions of being the youngest parliamentarian at 27 in 2000 and UP’s youngest CM at 38 in 2012, Samajawadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav seems to have finally come of age despite a series of electoral defeats since 2014.

The results of 2022 might not have led Akhilesh to the throne of UP, but he fought to accomplish the mission which always was considered to be herculean. He exhibited political maturity to beat the mighty BJP in its own game by cobbling up strategic alliances with smaller caste-based parties.

Akhilesh left no stone unturned to shrugg off the tag of being a ‘one family party’ and denied tickets to family members.

He tried to discipline partymen to shed the baggage of hooliganism, which his party is still carrying, and it reflected in the polls. He drew massive crowds in rallies, but convert that into votes.

He reached out to party veterans personally, projecting inclusiveness.

Akhilesh even mended the discordant notes in the family by shaking hands with uncle Shivpal Yadav and making him contest the polls on SP ticket.

After crushing defeats in 2017 followed by 2019 Lok Sabha elections, went back to the drawing board and drafted the roadmap for 2022.

He replicated the BJP caste calculus and struck tie-ups with smaller caste-based parties rather than going with Congress and BSP.

However, the strategy to induct big leaders from BJP ahead of the polls flopped. Swami Prasad Maurya and Dharam Singh Saini lost.

Neither did the alliances bring dividends in the form of non-Yadav OBC votes.

Even the farm protests did not hit BJP as much as expected. The saving grace for Akhilesh, fighting his first Assembly election, was that he won by more than 60,000 votes from the Karhal seat in Mainpuri.

RLD gracious in defeat

NOIDA: Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) president Jayant Chuadhary said he respects the people mandate. His party had formed an alliance with SP.

The RLD had fielded candidates in 33 seats in western UP and eight of them won.

“I respect public opinion. Congratulations to all the winning MLAs! It is expected that they will work according to the trust of the people. Our workers have worked hard, and the struggle will continue!”

MUMBAI: The Shiv Sena bagged less votes than the ones which went to NOTA in Goa, Uttar Pradesh and Manipur, Election Commission data shows.

In Goa, the Sena had fielded candidates in 10 seats.

All of them lost deposit.

Sena candidates got less than 100 votes in Cortalim (55 votes), Quepem (66), Vasco-Da-Gama (71) and Sanquelim (99).

`None of the Above’ or NOTA option secured 1.12 per cent of total votes polled in Goa, while the Sena bagged a mere 0.18 per cent votes.

In Manipur, the Shiv Sena contested six seats.

The NOTA secured 0.54 per cent votes in the northeastern state while the Sena bagged 0.34 per cent.

In Uttar Pradesh, the Sena had bagged 0.03 per cent votes as of Thursday evening, while NOTA has amassed 0.69 per cent votes.

About its dismal performance, Shiv Sena chief spokesperson Sanjay Raut said his party received less votes than NOTA because it fell “short of (currency) notes”.

“The Sena received less votes than NOTA because we could not manage `notes’ used by the BJP. Still we contested in Goa and Uttar Pradesh. Our fight will continue. Victory or defeat is not the end, it is the start. We will continue to work,” the Sena MP said.

The party had deployed a battery of leaders including Maharashtra Tourism Minister Aaditya Thackeray for campaigning.

Aaditya Thackeray campaigned in Goa and Uttar Pradesh.

Sanjay Raut, Vinayak Raut, Arvind Sawant and Mumbai mayor Kishori Pednekar also campaigned in Goa.

But the party failed to make a foray in the neighbouring state even though Goa has a sizable Marathi-speaking population.

Maharashtra Minister and Shiv Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray on Thursday said results of the just held assembly polls, where the BJP emerged victorious in four of the five states that voted, will not impact the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in the state.

Unfazed by the Shiv Sena’s poor performance in states, where the party had fielded candidates, he said it was just the beginning of an electoral journey for the Maharashtra-based outfit.

The Shiv Sena bagged less votes than the ones which went to NOTA (none of the above) in Goa, Uttar Pradesh and Manipur, Election Commission data showed.

The Sena, which is in power in Maharashtra in alliance with the NCP and the Congress, had contested Assembly elections in these three states but drew a blank.

Talking to reporters here, Thackeray said the Shiv Sena will contest elections from the gram panchayat level to Parliament in quest to expand its organizational base.

“This is just a beginning,” he said, adding “the Shiv Sena will win one day.”

The Sena minister had campaigned for party candidates in Goa and Uttar Pradesh.

NEW DELHI:  The BJP broke a decades-old jinx to retain power in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, even as Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party pulled off a stunning victory in Punjab to become the only regional party to rule in two states. And the Congress faced severe drubbing in all the five states that went to polls. The BJP is also set to form governments in Manipur with a simple majority, and in Goa where it stopped short of getting a full majority.

The BJP’s exuberance is not misplaced as it has proved wrong all the political pundits who had predicted the party’s rout in the Jat-dominated western Uttar Pradesh which was the epicentre of farmers’ agitation. As results started pouring in, it became evident that western UP had voted resoundingly in favour of the BJP. The party’s strike rate in western UP was better than the main rival — the Samajwadi Party-Rashtriya Lok Dal combine.

The BJP performed equally well in all other regions of the state. The social coalition cobbled together by the party and the welfare schemes, including free ration to the poor, paid rich dividends. The party swept most of the constituencies having a large Dalit population indicating a huge shift of Dalits towards the BJP.

This shift of the Dalit vote dealt a deadly blow to Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party whose tally fell to a single digit for the first time since it started contesting elections in UP.

Mayawati has suffered huge setbacks in the last five elections in UP and her party’s vote share has continued to shrink over the last 10 years. She has, however, retained the support of a large chunk of Jatavs, the caste she belongs to, and a few other numerically smaller castes.

This seems to be the only vote left with her. But whether she would be able to bounce back from here is a million-dollar question.

The other big story of this election is the stunning victory pulled off by AAP which is poised to win over 90 out of 117 assembly seats. Buoyed by the success, Kejriwal laid bare his national ambition by exhorting people across the country to join AAP “to change the system”.  

Congress biggest loser, questions over Gandhi

Kejriwal said it was time the common man picked up the reins of power to decide his own future and the future of the country.

“Who is the person who has defeated Charanjeet Singh Channi? Labh Singh Ugoke runs a regular mobile phone repair shop. Who is the person who has defeated both Bikram Singh Majithia and Navjot Singh Sidhu? She is an ordinary AAP volunteer.”

The AAP landslide was so strong in Punjab that it swept away all the top leaders belonging to Congress and the Shiromani Akali Dal, the two parties that have been ruling the state alternatively for decades.

Among the giants who were made to bite dust were Charanjeet Singh Channi, Prakash Singh Badal, Sukhbir Badal, Amarinder Singh and Navjot Singh Sidhu. For the first time in decades, there will not be a single Badal in the Punjab assembly. Congress became the biggest loser in these elections.

The party not only lost power in Punjab, but failed to perform well in Uttarakhand where it was widely believed to have been on a comeback trail. But the biggest humiliation for the party came in Uttar Pradesh where Priyanka Gandhi was leading the campaign.

The party saw a dramatic fall in its vote share and managed to win just two out of 403 seats. This has been the Congress’ worst performance in India’s largest state in decades.

The main opposition to the BJP in UP, the Samajwadi Party, had put together a rainbow alliance of castes to take on the BJP.

The SP’s attempt to shed the image of being a Yadav party succeeded to an extent but was not good enough to beat the BJP. The SP alliance stopped well short of the majority mark in spite of increasing its tally by almost 80 seats compared to its score in the last election.

In the last three elections, the SP has allied with three parties.

It fought the 2017 assembly election in alliance with the Congress, the 2019 election with BSP and the latest one with RLD. Nothing seems to be working for the young Akhilesh Yadav, who has come out of the shadow of his father and uncles but has so far failed to register a win of his own.

Modi imprint, says world media

New Delhi: The international media commented that the BJP’s record electoral gains in UP and elsewhere once again reinforce the dominance of PM Modi in Indian politics for the foreseeable future.

A report by the Washington Post said, “The results make Modi’s BJP the favourite to win the next national election in 2024.” Daily Telegraph said the election is expected to be a barometer for the national political mood.