Political wisdom in India suggests that the road to Delhi’s throne passes through Uttar Pradesh. This inference is based on the numbers game: UP, after all, sends as many as 80 members to Parliament. But the 2024 elections would probably be remembered for inverting this logic. While the Bharatiya Janata Party has won Delhi, albeit with a diminished mandate, UP was far more parsimonious in its benevolence towards the BJP, raising a storm instead in favour of the coalition of the Samajwadi Party and the Congress. The SP and the Congress bagged a total of 43 seats, with the former winning 37 of these. The BJP’s tally dropped to 33; a measure of the turning tide can be gained from the fact that the saffron party had won 71 and 62 seats, respectively, in 2014 and 2019. Some of the BJP’s maharathis — Smriti Irani is among them — bit the dust; Narendra Modi’s own victory margin in Varanasi was cut significantly; the BJP even lost Faizabad that includes Ayodhya, the site of the Ram temple, whose inauguration, the BJP was confident, would help it ride the crest of a saffron wave in the state.

The BJP’s relatively poor showing can be attributed to a host of factors. The SP outwitted the BJP by way of stitching up a formidable rainbow alliance comprising diverse caste groups. Livelihood issues, especially unemployment and price rise, weighed heavily on the minds of the electorate, particularly the youth. The performance of Mr Modi’s government had been far from satisfactory on these crucial parameters. The BJP, uncharacteristically, even bungled the ticket distribution, often choosing candidates who were not well received by its local supporters. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh — the BJP president is on record saying that the party no longer needed the crutch called RSS — was markedly tepid in its poll outreach as well. Taken together, a combination of hubris, complacency and inner schisms seems to have led to the BJP losing UP. Of course, this does not amount to UP rejecting the BJP or its ideology. The SP and the Congress would have to build on this momentum for the electoral gains to be consolidated on the ground. For this, it must wed its thrust on bread-and-butter issues with social engineering to attain an even wider demographic base before the next assembly elections. As for the BJP, UP has sent it back to the proverbial drawing board in search of a new equation.