DUBAI: India’s Hindi bastion and the king-making state of Uttar Pradesh put the demonitisation debacle behind and gave Prime Minister Narendra Modi BJP party a thumping majority.
Proving all political pundits wrong, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), steamrolled the UP elections winning a literally stunning majority.
Modi and BJP will undoubtedly use the victory as a validation of their policies and further tighten their grip on India.
BJP lost in some other states, but no one in India is concerned about what they see as ‘marginal’ states in this round of polls – even though a heavyweight like Punjab has gone to the Congress alliance.
Leading exit polls had shown BJP leading in UP, but the margin of the victory left pollsters and pundits alike red-faced.
In hindsight, one commentator said the focus on Muslim vote by rival parties ‘coalesced’ the Hindu vote behind BJP. And with Hindu being by far the majority, by far the majority for BJP.
Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati was quick to point to electoral fraud. “It did not matter which party’s button you pressed – BJP would still get the vote,” she alleged while calling BJP’s victory a ‘muder of democracy’.
Below are the full results of the state elections in India.
– By Rajive Singh
