BJP state in-charge Vinod Tawde will visit the state from September 16 to September 22. Among other things, he will review these flipped booths and strategise on what the party needs to do to win them back.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP faced a setback, winning only 33 seats, down from the 62 it had won in 2019. The Samajwadi Party, meanwhile, won 37 seats, a big jump from the five seats it had won in 2019.
The major booth-level erosion for the BJP was in rural areas, with almost 80% of the flipped booths located in rural pockets. A close look at the data reveals that the BJP lost the maximum number of booths in the Awadh and Purvanchal regions.
In the 2022 assembly elections, the BJP won 101 of the 154 seats in the Awadh belt and 53 of the 102 seats in Purvanchal. In Awadh, the BJP suffered significant booth-level losses across Amethi, Faizabad, Kannauj, Sultanpur and Sitapur. In Purvanchal, a significant section of non-Yadav OBC votes shifted towards the SP, resulting in booth losses in Jaunpur, Ghazipur, Machhlishahr, Chandauli and rural Prayagraj.
In West UP and Ruhelkhand, out of 128 assembly seats, the BJP won 87 in 2022. In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the party maintained a lead in 65 assembly seats.
In Bundelkhand, the BJP won 14 of the 19 assembly seats in 2022. The party maintained a lead in nine seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.Apart from anti-incumbency in certain areas, local issues were a bigger factor in Bundelkhand, leading to the party losing its edge.
The SP’s “PDA” push also led to the erosion of a section of Kurmi, Kushwaha and other OBC votes from the BJP. At the same time, the “PDA” factor, coupled with the decline of the BSP, led to the transfer of a section of anti-Jatav Dalit votes towards the SP alliance.
