With this the campaigning for all the five states- UP, Punjab, Goa, Manipur and Uttarakhand is now officially over. The results will be declared on May 10.
Held in the shadow of the COVID pandemic, campaigning began under strict restrictions imposed by the Election Commission, which were relaxed in later phases as infections declined across India.
can do BJP Repeat your 2017 feat in UP?
With the election campaign coming to an end, BJP President JP Nadda and Union Home Minister Amit Shah expressed confidence that the saffron party will form government in UP as well as in three other states of Goa, Uttarakhand and Manipur. The leaders insisted that the party would make impressive gains in Punjab as well.
In the 2017 elections, the BJP registered a historic victory in UP – winning 312 of the 403 assembly seats with a vote share of nearly 40 per cent.
This was the BJP’s best performance in Uttar Pradesh since it entered the electoral fray in the state in 1980.
A phase-wise mapping of the 2017 results shows how saffron dominated the electoral landscape of UP after the last elections. In the first phase alone, the party won 91 per cent of the seats in the 2017 elections.
Therefore, the challenge before the BJP in UP is not only to retain the state, but also to match its historic performance in 2017.
Moreover, for the BJP, it is also a personal challenge as no chief minister of UP has been re-elected since 1985.
high voltage fight
In the past two months, high-profile faces like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi have toured the state to woo voters.
From mega roadshows to hybrid rallies, the leaders tried their best to garner the support of voters in the numerically important state.
Campaigning in the final phase reached its zenith with Prime Minister Narendra Modi leading the BJP’s election attack in Varanasi and its surrounding districts.
Trying to quell the anti-incumbency wave, the ruling BJP raised issues like forced migration and law and order problems during the previous Samajwadi Party government.
BJP leaders dubbed its rivals “dynasty” and its star campaigners warned that mafia elements jailed by the Yogi Adityanath government would be out if SP forms his own government.
Apart from highlighting the achievements of “double engine” governments, the BJP is also reminding Prime Minister Narendra Modi of free ration distribution among the poor, cleverly running the co-relationship of salt, adding the metaphor of salt in his speech. Intensifying the campaign for with allegiance.
Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav has been targeting the BJP government over inflation, unemployment, the problem of stray cattle and farmers’ agitation against three agricultural laws, taking a dig at Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in his speeches.
The harvesting of four farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri has also been exposed by all the opposition parties as Ashish Mishra, son of Union Minister Ajay Mishra, is an accused in the case.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra wooed voters with her ‘ladki hoon, lad sakti hoon’ campaign on issues related to women and their safety and questioned caste and religion based politics during the last three decades.
marginally low turnout
Based on the data compiled after the first six phases, this year UP has seen 60.63 per cent less turnout this year as compared to 61 per cent in the same seats in 2017.
The overall voter turnout for UP in 2017 was 61.24 per cent, which is higher than the figures recorded in 2012.
However, the figures may change depending on the data of the seventh phase of polling on March 7.
So far, 64.4% have recorded the highest voter turnout in the second phase on February 14.
A similar trend was reported in most other states where elections were held last month.
All the four states of Punjab, Uttarakhand Goa and Manipur saw a drop in voting in 2022 compared to five years ago.
While the difference is negligible in Uttarakhand, Punjab saw a major drop of 5.4 percentage points.
(with inputs from agencies)