By IANS,
New Delhi : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Tuesday said the Uttar Pradesh election results would cast a shadow on the Congress-led central government as the Samajwadi Party (SP) had emerged strongly in the state.
Senior party leader Sushma Swaraj, meanwhile, said that the results were a “mixed bag” for the BJP.
“The people in Uttar Pradesh wanted change, that change came in the form of SP,” BJP leader Rajiv Pratap Rudy told IANS.
“SP emerging independently in Uttar Pradesh is a bad sign for the Congress, it will cast a shadow on the central government,” Rudy said.
“Congress’ credit card in Uttar Pradesh has defaulted,” he said, adding the Congress’ failure in finding local leadership in the state was the reason behind its failure.
The Congress, which has been having problems with alliance partner Trinamool Congress at the centre, was expected to strike an alliance with the SP in Uttar Pradesh, according to political pundits.
“The elections were localised, we are where we were in Uttar Pradesh… We could have done better but we are not disappointed,” he added.
Sushma Swaraj meanwhile told reporters outside BJP office “it’s a mixed bag for BJP”.
“We have won Punjab, we are winning Goa, we are nearing the majority in Uttarakhand also,” she added.
She accepted that the party “could not do well” in Uttar Pradesh.
“The electorate wanted to get rid of BSP (Bhujan Samaj Party)-government and they selected SP (Samajwadi Party) as an alternative,” she said.
“It would have been very good had we done well in UP also. In three states, we have performed well,” Swaraj said.
She, however, refused to blame UP poll campaign in-charge Uma Bharati for the performance, saying the reasons needed to be “analyzed”.
Swaraj, however, agreed that corruption was a major issue during the poll campaign.
“Corruption has become an issue… in that issue Anna Hazare has also contributed, we also contributed… so did Baba Ramdev, all these factors did matter…”, she told news channel NDTV.
Another BJP leader, Prakash Javadekar, told IANS the party was overall happy, adding that regional parties had a larger role to play in Uttar Pradesh.
“Overall we are happy, we have won three out of five and ousted the Congress in Goa,” he said.
“As for Uttar Pradesh, we are happy as we were expecting 80 plus,” he said, adding: “It (Uttar Pradesh) has become the Tamil Nadu of the north.”
“In general it (the poll result) shows people are against corruption and price rise…the magic of the Gandhi family has gone,” Javadekar noted.