Lok Sabha Election 2019: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday launched a no-holds-barred attack on the Congress party, linking its leaders to the AgustaWestland scandal. His speeches at the election rallies in Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh and Dehradun in neighbouring Uttarakhand revealed a sense of urgency ahead of the voting for the first phase on April 11. Of the 91 Lok Sabha seats that will go to polls on Thursday, 8 are in India’s most populous state Uttar Pradesh, which is most crucial for Modi’s re-election bid.
In Uttar Pradesh, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party is pitted against Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party combine and the Congress in a three-cornered contest. The BJP’s chances of repeating its 2014 tally of 73 seats along with its allies hinges on a division in opposition votes as the SP-BSP-RLD alliance looks formidable, at least on paper. The alliance and the Congress are vying for Muslim votes that constitute around 19% of the state’s population.
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Any division of anti-BJP votes will directly benefit the BJP which is struggling hard to retain a large number of total 73 seats won by the party and its allies in the state in 2014 Lok Sabha election.
A three-cornered fight suits the BJP as it will only harm the opposition, not the BJP. Combined vote share of SP-BSP alone was more than that of BJP in 41 seats in the state in 2014 Lok Sabha election. Addition of RLD will add more teeth to the SP-BSP alliance as it will gain Jat and Muslim votes for the alliance in Western Uttar Pradesh where these two communities are in a dominant position in politics.
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In 2014, BJP gained 42.30% popular votes and won 71 seats on its own, Samajwadi Party was a distant second with 22.20% popular votes and five seats, followed by Bahujan Samaj Party which got 19.60% votes but failed to win any seat. In terms of gaining popular votes, the Congress was at the fourth position as the party came down to single digit both in terms of seats and popular votes.
The combined vote share of these three parties, SP-BSP and Congress was 49.3% in 2014 Lok Sabha election that was enough to completely upset the BJP’s arithmetic in Uttar Pradesh. However, the division in anti-NDA votes gave the party and its allies unprecedented 73 seats. This time, a three-cornered contest has come as a relief for Prime Minister Modi as he will benefit from a division in the opposition votes.
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