In BJP’s initial evaluation of LS poll results, 3 possible reasons why it lost ground in UP, Rajasthan, Haryana

An initial internal assessment of the fall in the BJP’s tally in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Rajasthan points to the consolidation of Jat, Dalit, and Muslim votes behind the Opposition and poor poll management, including the selection of candidates, as reasons that may have contributed to its below-par performance.

Though the BJP has yet to begin its poll review process officially — sources said there would be a “review and assessment of the party’s performance at various levels” before the findings are sent to the central leadership, with the process likely to take months — multiple senior BJP leaders and party insiders The Indian Express spoke to provided an insight into the party’s preliminary evaluation about what may have gone wrong.

These leaders said the above factors, coupled with unemployment and inflation, cost the party 45 seats in these three states. As a result of this poor showing, the BJP lost its sole majority in the Lok Sabha, finishing 32 seats short of the halfway mark of 272 in the 543-member Lok Sabha. The BJP won 62 seats in UP in 2019 but was reduced to 33 in the state, fell from 25 to 14 seats in Rajasthan, and saw its tally halved from 10 to five in Haryana.

The BJP functionaries said the Opposition’s campaign that the Constitution would be under threat if the BJP-led NDA were to more than 400 seats — “Abki baar 400 paar” was the poll slogan — dented the party. One of them said the central and state-level leadership were confident that the “Ayodhya fervour after the pran pratishtha (consecration) of the Ram Temple and (PM Narendra) Modi ji’s popularity” would negate every disadvantage the party faced. “It resulted in the party ignoring warnings from ground-level workers while picking candidates,”