In the heat of campaigning for Uttar Pradesh elections 2022, top BJP leaders, including Union Home Minister Amit Shah, had pitched a win for Yogi Adityanath in the state as an important milestone in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s return in 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Uttar Pradesh has always held special significance in Indian politics as it sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha. If the road to Delhi goes through UP, the BJP seems well on its way with a thumping win in the state and three others. Its scorecard in the just-concluded elections reads 4-1, barring Punjab where the AAP has scripted history in its quest to become a national party.

The Congress, meanwhile, has been reduced to ruling just two states – Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh – the same as AAP. Even in these, the party is riddled with factionalism and hasn’t taken any steps to counter it.

In these seven reports, News18.com analysed what the Assembly election result 2022 means for the big 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

UP Fuels Modi-Yogi Double Engine

Five years after the BJP won a thumping majority in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections and selected him to lead the country’s most populous state, Yogi Adityanath has demonstrated that his trajectory is neither a flash in the pan nor a product of circumstances, writes political commentator Ajit Datta.

“The big story of the 2022 Assembly elections is that Yogi is here to stay. With successive election cycles reinforcing a political phenomenon that was believed to be a single-time event, we now have an additional and important fixture in the nation’s political consciousness… The BJP’s victory in Uttar Pradesh, therefore, bears important takeaways for both Yogi and national politics at large.” FULL STORY

AAP-Set for Congress

The Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP registered a stupendous victory in Punjab polls, winning a whopping 92 seats in the 117-member Assembly, prompting an exultant AAP leader Raghav Chadha to declare that “the AAP is the natural and national replacement of the Congress”. Chadha had reason to make such a declaration, writes senior journalist Anita Katyal.

“The Congress is already out of the reckoning in wide swathes of the country and after the latest round of losses, its footprint has shrunk even further… Clearly, it is not the BJP which has to fear the AAP but it is the Congress which should be running for cover as it is gradually being replaced by the new party. The Congress literally gifted Punjab to the AAP on a platter.” FULL STORY

Modi Magic and Yogi Booster

Narendra Modi and Yogi Adityanath’s double-engine has worked wonders for the Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh. While the Modi factor remains prime in Uttar Pradesh, BJP leaders point out to News18.com that no other CM had managed to repeat a government in 37 years. Modi as the PM was particularly disappointed at the central programmes not being implemented in UP between 2014 and 2017 and Yogi as CM is said to have been given a clear mandate to reverse the situation ahead of 2022.

Uttar Pradesh under the Modi-Yogi double engine seems to have emerged as a model state like once Gujarat was under Narendra Modi. Yogi, who did over 200 rallies and roadshows in the state, now cements his place in the top BJP troika alongside Modi and Amit Shah and is a leader in the party to watch out for in the future. FULL STORY

Congress Rebels Gain Muscle

“The more things change, the more they remain the same.” This was the post-result sentiment among the Group of 23 in the Congress who have been vocal against Rahul Gandhi’s style of leadership and the lack of a full-time president. Many like Kapil Sibal had called for introspection after defeat in the last round of elections. The same story being repeated this time, with worse ending, means complaints of G23 will get louder.

With their Channi gamble in Punjab flopping, it will become difficult for the Gandhis now to talk of any leadership change in Congress-ruled Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. Leaders are down, cadre are down and it’s a bigger blow to Priyanka Gandhi Vadra who led her first election campaign in UP. Will she now stay back in the state till 2024 as promised? FULL STORY

What Next for AAP?

In his nine-year political journey, Arvind Kejriwal has suffered setbacks, like the defeat against Narendra Modi in Varanasi in 2014, but has kept his national ambition burning. With this emphatic victory in Punjab, a mid-sized border state, the AAP has finally shaken off its tag as a “Delhi-centric” party and succeeded in forming the government in two states. It has achieved what no other regional party founded way before the AAP has.

The AAP’s 92 seats in Punjab has enabled it to send five members to the Rajya Sabha by March 31 and two more by the end of July. Kejriwal & Co will soon be back to the drawing board to challenge the BJP in Gujarat, the home-state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It is already being billed as the principal opposition, replacing the Congress, in the run up to the 2024 general elections. FULL STORY

Women Voters Hold the Key

Behind the Bharatiya Janata Party’s big win in Uttar Pradesh for a historic second term, which no government could achieve in the past 37 years, are the women voters who seem to have consolidated behind the party over the free rations given for the past two years and the improved law and order. Even the promise of free electricity made by Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav could not sway the women voters to the SP camp, nor could Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s ‘Ladki Hun, Lad Sakti Hun’ campaign.

Is this the demographic parties across states should be reaching out to intelligently for 2024? FULL STORY

Game Yogi, Set BJP, Match Modi

fter eight years and several policy reversals, it seems the Modi electoral magic remains intact. While a localised victory can be attributed to local administration, nothing explains how the BJP overcame anti-incumbency in four different states other than central government policies and programmes, writes Abhijit Iyer-Mitra.

“The BJP unlike its amateur competitors is a political animal. It clearly calculates the fallout of every step carefully and comes up with focused mitigation measures. While the BJP state victories must be lauded as a win for their respective state leaderships, the fact remains that these victories are built on a platform created by Modi.” FULL STORY

Read all minute-by-minute news updates for Uttar Pradesh election results 2022, Punjab election results 2022, Uttarakhand election results 2022, Manipur election results 2022, and Goa election results 2022.

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