The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has deployed 30 ministers and 15 senior leaders as caretakers across 10 assembly seats going to bypolls across Uttar Pradesh. The Election Commission has not announced the dates of polling on these ten seats yet.
The high-stakes bypoll is a litmus test for both the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) which suffered a setback in the Lok Sabha elections in the state and the INDIA bloc which faces the challenge of consolidating its position after comeback in the general elections.
The BJP’s preparation also assumes significance amid reports ofrumblings in the party’s Uttar Pradesh unit after its dismal performance in the Lok Sabha Elections 2024.
The BJP won 33 seats in theLok Sabha polls 2024, down from 62 it had won from the 80 UP seats in 2019 general elections. Overall, the saffron party’s seats came down from 303 in 2019 to 240 across the state in the general elections.
The idea of appointing ministers and senior ministers for bypolls is to ensure every voter is accounted for and address the grievances of party workers ahead of the by-elections whose date has not been announced yet, according to a report in Indian Express.
Bypolls in nine constituencies have been necessitated by the resignation of MLAs who have now moved on to Parliament. For the tenth seat – Sishamau – the polling is being held for a new MLA after its representative Irfan Solanki of the Samajwadi Party (SP) was convicted for harassing a woman over a land row.
The SP won five of these seats in the 2022 Assembly polls while the Jayant Chaudhary-led Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), then its ally and now in the BJP-led NDA, won one. The BJP bagged three constituencies and its ally NISHAD Party won one seat.
The bypolls are also expected to set the tone for 2027 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.