The Lok Sabha election result from Uttar Pradesh is a surprising and mixed one. All parties, even the Bahujan Samaj Party are analysing the results in their way. The results for the Samajwadi Party and the Congress party are unbelievable. They don’t expect such a result. Even the Gandhi family was unsure of contesting Amethi and Rae Bareli LS seats.
The Congress party is highly jubilant of the electoral outcome in Uttar Pradesh. By contesting 17 seats within the INDI alliance, the Congress party won six seats which is a big achievement for the Congress party as the party was even suspicious of opening its account in the state. The Congress party contested in Uttar Pradesh in alliance with the Samajwadi Party and the Trinamool Congress.
In the 2009 LS elections, the Congress party won 21 seats from the state. We should not forget that it was the best performance of the Congress Party post-1984 in UP. In the 2009 LS elections, the Congress party won 206 seats in the entire country, and from UP, its tally was 21. The Congress party was just behind the Samajwadi Party which won 23 seats in 2009 in UP. The case of Firozabad LS seat was surprising for the Congress party. In the 2009 LS poll, Akhilesh Yadav of SP won the seat. Besides Firozabad, Akhilesh also won Kannauj seat in 2009. Akhilesh vacated Firozabad LS seat considering it safe for the family and put his wife Dimple Yadav from the seat. In the by-poll Raj Babbar of the Congress party defeated Dimple Yadav by a margin of nearly 11 percent. This was a huge victory for the Congress party and a big setback for the Yadav family.
But the euphoria of the Congress party remained short-lived and in the subsequent Assembly election in 2012 in UP the Congress party won only 28 seats. Rahul Gandhi contested 2012 Assembly election projecting himself as the leader without clear depiction.In 2017 Assembly election the Congress party tally further dropped to 7 seats while contesting on 114 seats in alliance with the Samajwadi Party. The trust deficit between the cadres and voters of the two parties is so apparent that they do not vote for each other.
There has been a vast trust deficit between these two parties since the late 90s. Late Mulayam Singh Yadav did not trust either the Congress party or the Gandhi family. Even on the floor of the Lok Sabha late Yadav declared the Congress party as his political enemy. Late Yadav did not extend support to Sonia Gandhi in 1998 to become Prime Minister after the downfall of Vajpayee’s dispensation by a margin of one vote in Lok Sabha. These two parties the Samajwadi Party and Congress party don’t tread for long as they always remain suspicious of breaching into the vote bank of each other.
Even after successful results for the INDI Alliance in UP in 2024 none of the parties are giving due credit to their partner.
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