BJP’s UP loss includes 5 of 9 LS seats in Ayodhya region, 9 of 12 in Varanasi

THE BJP’s big loss in Uttar Pradesh included setbacks in the regions of Ayodhya and Varanasi, both crucial to the party’s Hindutva project, which its governments in the state and Centre have both showered special attention on since coming to power.

While Ayodhya saw the consecration of the Ram Temple, long promised by the BJP, Varanasi is now not only Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency for the third time in running, but also the site of his government’s ambitious Kashi Vishwanath Temple corridor project.

Of the nine Lok Sabha constituencies falling in the Ayodhya region, the BJP lost from five. In 2019, it had won seven of these seats. The constituencies from which the party lost included Faizabad, under which the Ram Temple falls, which was won by the Samajwadi Party’s Awadhesh Prasad Singh, a Dalit fielded from a general category seat. The BJP had won the constituency in both 2014 and 2019.

In Sultanpur, BJP candidate Maneka Gandhi was served her first-ever electoral defeat by the Samajwadi Party’s Ram Bhual Nishad, who is originally from Gorakhpur. Basti Lok Sabha seat was also won by the SP, with the BJP’s two-time sitting MP from here, Harish Dwivedi, losing.

The BJP further lost Ambedkar Nagar and Shrawasti, which it had not won in 2019 either. However, the party was hoping to reverse its fate given that the consecration of the Ram Temple happened just four months ago. In fact, Ram Temple construction committee chairman and former PM Modi aide Nripendra Misra’s son Saket Mishra was the BJP candidate from Shrawasti.

The constituencies in the Ayodhya region from where the BJP won were Kaiserganj (from where the son of BJP leader Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who is facing sexual harassment allegations, was fielded),