BJP: Analysis of BJP’s Performance in Different Phases of UP Elections | Lucknow News

LUCKNOW: INDIA bloc emerged a gainer in UP right from the first phase. BSP was the loser in all phases while BJP managed to match its 2019 performance only in the second phase. The factors that made INDIA gain and BJP lose were common in every phase, unrest against candidates and local issues could have added to the resentment among voters against the ruling party in some seats.
Phase 1

BJP could win just one seat in the season opener — Pilibhit. SP bagged maximum (4 of the 8 seats), Congress and RLD one each while Azad Samaz Party chief Chandrashekhar Azad won the Nagina seat. This phase had seats with high Muslim concentration and significant Dalit numbers. BSP was the biggest loser in this phase, as it lost all three seats from 2019. The reserved seat of Nagina, which has more than 20% Dalits, was won by Mayawati’s bete noire Azad while Saharanpur went to Congress’s Imran Masood, who was also with BSP till Mayawati expelled him last year. Bijnor, the third seat that BSP won in 2019, went to RLD, a BJP-ally. BJP, on the other hand, could retain only Pilibhit, having lost Kairana and Muzaffarnagar to SP. It was the consolidation of Muslim votes in favour of the INDIA bloc and Jatavs also shifting towards Congress that went in favour of the alliance. The articulate fielding of candidates by alliance in the seats and strong anti-incumbency against sitting BJP MPs in the seats also helped the opposition gain.
Phase 2
This phase was more about BSP’s loss. It could not retain Amroha, the fourth seat in west UP that it had won in 2019. BSP had expelled its sitting MP in Amroha, Danish Ali, last year for his proximity with Congress. He contested the seat as Congress candidate this time. Though he did not win, Ali drew more Muslim votes than BSP’s Mujahid Hussain. RLD, which did not win any seat in 2019, was a gainer this time as it won Baghpat. BJP swept the remaining seats. This phase was in favour of BJP because of the demography of the constituencies that went to the polls in the phase. Ghaziabad is a BJP stronghold and was won by Atul Garg despite resentment over VK Singh’s replacement as the candidate in the seat. The constituency has around 28 lakh voters, still the margin of win got reduced. Baghpat was a comfortable win for RLD due to consolidation of Jats.
Phase 3
SP got its tally increased from two to six in this phase, while BJP tally was reduced to half — from eight in 2019 to four in 2024. The four seats (Etah, Badaun, Firozabad and Aonla) BJP lost were won by SP. Firozabad and Badaun are the strongholds of Yadav clan. BJP lost Etah and Aonla because of strong anti-incumbency against Rajvir Singh aka Raju Bhaiyya (son of late Kalyan Singh) and Dharmendra Kashyap, respectively. In Bareilly, where BJP had replaced veteran Santosh Singh Gangwar with Chhatrapal Gangwar, the party won.
Phase 4
In this phase again, the INDIA bloc gained. Both SP and Congress did not win any seats in 2019 but in 2024, SP got four and Congress one. BJP came down to eight in 2024 from winning all 13 seats in 2019. It lost Sitapur to Congress and Kheri, Dhaurahra, Kannauj and Etawah (reserved seat) to SP. By fourth phase, INDIA bloc had already become active and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav’s candidature from Kannauj, which was announced quite late, had galvanized the party’s poll machinery in the state. Anti-incumbency against BJP MPs was far more clear now.
Phase 5
SP was the biggest gainer in the phase. It won Mohanlalganj (SC), Jalaun (SC), Hamirpur, Banda, Fatehpur, Kaushambi (SC) and Faizabad while it won none in 2019. Congress, too, increased its tally from one in 2019 to three in 2024. BJP won only Lucknow, Jhansi, Gonda and Kaiserganj. In 2019, BJP had lost only Rae Bareli and won all. It came down from 13 in 2019 to four in 2024. SP gained seven seats from zero in 2019. This phase had maximum reserved seats going to polls. In Kaushambi, Vinod Sonkar lost after a strong Rajput leader from Kunda, Raghuraj Pratap Singh aka Raja Bhaiya, decided to stay neutral in the elections. Among the major losses was also Faizabad where Lallu Singh lost to SP veteran Awadhesh Prasad. Among other major losses in this phase were Amethi, where Smriti Irani lost to Gandhi family loyalist KL Sharma.
Phase 6
SP got a maximum of 10 seats in phase 6. It won a single seat in 2019. BSP lost all four while Congress gained one, from zero in 2019. BJP suffered loss of six seats, coming down to three from nine. The four seats BSP won in 2019, Ambedkarnagar, Shravasti, Lalganj (SC) and Jaunpur went to SP. Anti-incumbency against BJP MPs and Akhilesh Yadav’s smart choice of candidates with focus on non-Yadav OBCs affected the results in the phase. Eight-time MP Maneka Gandhi from Sultanpur, Sangam Lal Gupta from Pratapgarh, Ritesh Pandey from Ambedkarnagar, Saket Misra (son of Ram temple construction committee chairman Nripendra Misra) from Shravasti, Harish Dwivedi from Basti, Praveen Nishad from Sant Kabir Nagar, Neelam Sonkar from Lalganj, Kripa Shanker Singh from Jaunpur, Dinesh Lal Yadav Nirahua from Azamgarh and BP Saroj from Machhlishahr lost. BJP also lost Allahabad to Congress candidate Ujjwal Raman Singh.
Phase 7
SP was the gainer again, from zero seats in 2019 to six in 2024, in this phase. BJP lost three from 2019, and won only six. BSP lost two it won in 2019, Ghosi and Ghazipur. AD(S) was confined to only Mirzapur after losing Robertsganj (SC) to SP. PM Modi’s margin came down from 3.8 lakh in 2019 to 1.6 lakh in 2024. The phase also saw upper caste and backward votes split, because of which SP won Ghosi, as upper caste voters preferred SP’s Rajeev Rai over BJP-ally SBSP’s Arvind Rajbhar. In Chandauli, Union minister Mahendra Nath Pandey faced defeat. BSP lost Ghazipur, where SP Afzal Ansari was contesting after the death of his brother and mafia-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari, though it won Gorakhpur, Maharajganj, Bansgaon, Deoria and Kushinagar, the five seats considered part of CM Yogi Adityanath’s home turf.