Did the BJP miss one big tactic that could have helped it put up a better show in caste-ridden Uttar Pradesh? As the party looked for answers to explain its worst electoral performance in the state since 1985, there was a thinking that the party had not played the caste card well. As a top BJP leader suggested, given the Brahmin vote base in Uttar Pradesh, it might have been a worthwhile ploy to find a strong Brahmin candidate as the face of the party to counter the SP and the BSP.

The party never found such a candidate, but the BJP leader was speaking the obvious: that it had not been able to anticipate the so-called ‘tactical voting’ by Brahmins to oust Mulayam Singh Yadav as they sided with Mayawati and was now left ruing a missed chance. Its chief ministerial candidate — Kalyan Singh — was at best a compromise candidate and not good enough to pull the BJP’s election campaign. This could well be the end of the road for him.

Then, as results began coming in, party chief Rajnath Singh was aware that much of the blame would now land at his door because with a tally of over 200 meetings and rallies over a month, he had been the BJP’s star campaigner. It was an election in which BJP state President Kesri Nath Tripathi lost, as did Kalyan Singh’s son Rajvir from what was regarded as a Lodh stronghold. Sone Lal Patel, with whose Apna Dal Rajnath Singh had always been keen on an alliance despite opposition from Kalyan Singh, was among the major losers on Friday. And Gorakhpur MP Adityanath failed to deliver despite the hype over his ability to keep the Hindu vote intact.

... contd.