Stray cattle, price rise, paper leaks: UP BJP leaders point to reasons for poor performance

Lucknow: A day after Uttar Pradesh caused major upset for the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections, unlike in 2014 and 2019, the party legislators in the state and leaders said the writing had long been on the wall, and that the result was a sign for the party and the governments—at Centre and state —to get their act together.

Speaking to ET on condition of anonymity, several BJP MLAs spoke of how some major local issues like stray cattle were not addressed by the state government, despite PM Narendra Modi promising to find a solution to it during the 2022 state elections. Anti-incumbency was another factor on some seats, including high profile ones like Amethi and the same candidates were fielded despite demands from local workers to replace them.

Allegations were also levelled by an MLA against CM Yogi Adityanath for favouring his own Thakur caste wherein the MLA said that legislators belonging to the Thakur caste, even those of other parties or outsiders received great treatment from the CM, while inputs and suggestions of local MLAs and MPs from other castes were disregarded by him. Another MLA also suggested that the contentious Agnipath scheme should be reviewed and the old pension scheme should also be brought back. It was also felt that the party wrongly judged that the Modi factor and national pride plank would cause the electorate to ignore the other pressing issues concerning them.

"The stray cattle issue has come to a head with no solution sticking. The situation is such that a person is coming back from his own marriage and going straight to the field to guard it at night. The rural public really used to give our workers an earful when they would go for campaigning and this, along with issues like price rise, paper leaks that blunted the positive factor of Labharthi schemes," said a BJP MLA from the Rohilkhand region. "In villages, they are saying the Gau-mata swallowed BJP's seats," the MLA added on a lighter note.

The MLA also added that while the government is building many degree colleges in the state, they are being placed under state universities which ran them on a self-finance model and hiked the fees considerably, making it a big issue as it did not serve the purpose of being a government college.

A Dalit BJP MLA spoke about how the talk of constitution change and end to reservations resonated in a big way among the community who voted against the BJP. This also set a momentum for some backward classes or OBCs to drift away from the party, he said, adding there was rampant corruption taking place in the administration.

Another MLA said it was the leaders and workers who campaigned day and night, but they were taken for granted as their voice was muffled while the bureaucracy dominated.

A BJP functionary said the tone of the campaign had also increasingly become negative, with many supporters also not agreeing with the Prime Minister's use of words and phrases as they did not suit his stature. "There was also no promise regarding employment in the manifesto; only ration distribution was extended. Luckily, Mayawati remained scared till the very end, but had she gone ahead with the INDIA bloc, we would have got an even lesser tally," he said.