MP Polls: BJP Lost Half the Seats where PM Modi and CM Yogi Campaigned

Bhopal: The Modi-wave which brought the Madhya Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in power with a whopping 165 seats out of 230 in the 2013 assembly elections may have ended, according to the poll results.  

It seems that not only Prime Minister Narendra Modi but Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Aditiynath too– the top two star campaigners of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – have lost their sheen in Madhya Pradesh and brought bad luck for the BJP where they visited.

After analysing the election commission of India’s result data, NewsClick found that Modi and Yogi are no more a winning machine. In the places where both the leaders had campaigned and held rallies, the BJP lost half of the seats which had been the saffron party’s traditional assembly seats.

Also Read: Madhya Pradesh Polls: Three-Figure Margin Losses That Cost BJP a Win

According to the BJP’s official document, Prime Minister Narendra Modi campaigned in 10 constituencies of Madhya Pradesh from November 16 to 25, 2018. Of them, BJP and Congress have won five-five constituencies.

The assembly seats where BJP lost are – Chhatarpur, Chhindwara, Gwalior, Jabalpur and Vidisha. These all were BJP’s bastion and the party had been winning those seats for years.

The party has lost the Higher Education Minister and a cabinet minister from Gwalior and Jabalpur, respectively. The party even lost its strongest Vidisha constituency after 42 years of ruling.

Narendra Modi campaigned in Mandsaur, Rewa, Shahdol, Indore and Jhabua. In the first three districts, BJP has performed well and won all the seats but of Mandsaur’s Suwasra. However, the saffron party faced a major blow in the last two districts and lost two seats of Indore and two of Jhabua which had belonged to the BJP in 2013 and earlier.

It is worth mentioning that the constituencies where Narendra Modi had campaigned were most of the BJP’s bastion except Chhindwara which had been the Lok Sabha constituency of Madhya Pradesh’s newly announced Chief Ministerial candidate Kamal Nath.    

In 10 rallies, Modi tried to influence more than 56 nearby constituencies including tribal (Jhabua, Chhindwara), reserved (Shadol) and general seats (Gwalior, Indore, Rewa), but faced a humiliating defeat.

Out of 56 seats, BJP won 30, Congress 25 and Samajwadi Party one seat. Earlier, the BJP had owned more than 46 seats.     

Also Read: Why BJPs Star Campaigner Adityanath Failed Miserably in Chhattisgarh

BJP’s firebrand campaigner, who is well-known for his pro-Hindu speeches, Uttar Pradesh’s CM Yogi Adityanath performed as good as Narendra Modi in the Madhya Pradesh assembly election.

Out of the 20 constituencies of the state where he had campaigned for the party from November 19 to 25, BJP and Congress won 10 seats each. Of the total 10 seats won by the Congress, five had belonged to BJP and one to BSP in 2013. The rest four seats had been the Congress’s.

The seats Congress snatched from BJP and BSP are – Sheopur, Badnawar, Maheshar, Alot, Udaipura, Indore-1 and Ambha.  

In a bid to consolidate the Hindu votes during the election campaign, the Madhya Pradesh BJP unit had demanded more rallies of Yogi Adityanath, however, his campaigning adversely affected the party and cost its five seats. The party which had previously owned 15 seats out of 20 (where he had campaigned) is now left with only 10 seats.

The election commission of India declared the Madhya Pradesh assembly results on December 11. Of 230 seats, Congress won 114 seats, BJP 109, Samajwadi Party 1, Bahujan Samaj Party 2 and four Independents.