Uttar Pradesh gave a jolt to the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls, with the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party at the centre of the political upheaval. The saffron party’s victory tally almost halved in the key state with 80 Lok Sabha seats – from 62 in 2019 to 33 seats this year.  

The SP recorded a meteoric rise from merely five victories in the 2019 polls to emerging as the biggest party in the state, with 37 seats in its kitty. The INDIA bloc together stands at 43. This came about despite the BJP’s concerted efforts to sweep the state with rhetoric related to the Ram temple constructed in UP’s Ayodhya. So which factors drove this electoral shift?    

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s offensives targeting the opposition and the Muslim community failed to strike a chord, while the INDIA bloc’s narrative that the Modi government may change the constitution if voted to majority resonated with many. Yadav’s Backward-Dalit-Minority coalition also proved to be significant as the SP chief increasingly fielded OBC and Dalit leaders.   

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