BJP’s poll juggernaut, Yogi’s bulldozer on roll; Akhilesh, Shivpal bond again

Lucknow: Beginning the year with a big win in the assembly polls, the BJP also breached the Samajwadi Party citadels in Azamgarh and Rampur building momentum for 2024 General Election.

The party conquered Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan’s bastion in Rampur, winning the bye-elections for the Lok Sabha seat and the Rampur Sadar assembly constituency, which had elected Khan 10 times in a row.

But its winning streak broke with bypoll defeats in Mainpuri Lok Sabha constituency -- which had fallen vacant after the death of SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav and the Khatauli assembly segment it had won in the 2017 and the 2022 state elections. The year saw controversies over the use of bulldozers to demolish properties of alleged gangsters, and a revival of sorts of temple-mosque disputes in Varanasi and Mathura.

Dashing the hopes of a resurgent SP led by Akhilesh Yadav, the BJP registered a comfortable victory in the February-March assembly election, paving the way for the return of Yogi Adityanath as chief minister for a second consecutive term a rare, first-indecades feat in Uttar Pradesh politics.

The state polls on which the nation’s attention was hooked saw an improved performance by the SP which got 111 seats out of 403, against 47 five years ago. But the Congress (two seats) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (one seat) were decimated. (PTI)