BJP national executive meet likely to focus on UP debacle in Lok Sabha elections

LUCKNOW: BJP’s poll debacle in UP in the Lok Sabha elections is likely to figure prominently in the party’s national executive meet which is expected to be convened soon, sources said.
It would be followed by the state executive meeting which would draft the blueprint of the party’s future strategy to take on the opposition, mainly the SP-Congress combine in UP.
The twin developments are expected to be lined up ahead of the bypolls on 10 assembly seats in UP. They include the nine assembly seats — Karhal (Mainpuri), Milkipur (Ayodhya), Kundarki (Moradabad), Katehari (Ambedkarnagar), Khair (Aligarh), Phulpur (Prayagraj), Meerapur (Bijnor), Ghaziabad and Majhawan (Mirzapur) — which have fallen vacant after the incumbent MLAs, including SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, got elected to the Lok Sabha. Byelection is also due on Sisamau assembly seat in Kanpur where sitting SP MLA Irfan Solanki got seven years jail following his conviction in an arson case.
Sources said UP BJP is preparing an exhaustive report on the reasons behind its “far-below expectation” performance in UP. BJP tally in UP plunged from 62 in 2019 to 33 this time, a decline of 29 seats. Sources said the state unit will submit the report to the central leadership later this week. UP BJP chief Bhupendra Chaudhary is reported to have met BJP national president JP Nadda last week and briefed him about an initial ground level report.
Sources added that strong anti-incumbency against sitting MPs leading to ineffective mobilisation of ground level organisational machinery and cloaked discord between the MPs and some sitting and former MLAs have emerged as some of the key reasons behind BJP’s slide in UP.
This was accentuated by opposition’s aggressive grassroots campaign against BJP. Analysts said the opposition managed to ratchet up allegations of saffron outfit’s purported “conspiracy” to alter the Constitution and scrap the reservation for SC/STs and OBCs.
UP BJP spokesperson Hero Bajpayee said the party would take up all the issues and discuss them threadbare and then put them before the central brass.