LUCKNOW (TIP): Delivering a major blow to the BJP, the Samajwadi Party won Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh by-election. Samajwadi Party’s Nagendra Pratap Singh Patel defeated BJP’s Kaushlendra Singh Patel by 59,613 votes in Phulpur. In Yogi Adityanath‘s bastion, SP’s Praveen Kumar Nishad defeated BJP’s Upendra Dutt Shukla by 21000 votes.

Gorakhpur and Phulpur are highprofile constituencies as both the seats were represented by BJP’s firebrand leader and current UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya respectively. Adityanath represented Gorakhpur five times in the Lok Sabha, and it went vacant in 2017 when he was elected to UP Assembly to take over as the Chief Minister of the state.

In 2014, BJP had won both the seats with over 3 lakh vote margin. In Gorakhpur, BJP’s Yogi Adityanath had defeated SP’s Rajmati Nishad by 31,2783 votes. And in Phulpur, BJP’s Keshav Prasad Maurya defeated SP’s Dharam Raj Singh Patel by 3,08,308 votes. However, currently the BJP is trailing on both the seats. Ten candidates are in fray from Gorakhpur and 22 candidates contested from Phulpur.

ALARM BELLS IN BJP

The defeat of the Bharatiya Janata Party in all six Lok Sabha seats where byelections were held this year has sounded alarm bells in the party in Uttar Pradesh ahead of the 2019 Parliamentary polls, while stoking speculation about the Opposition stitching an alliance together to take the BJP on after tasting success in the recent bypolls.

The BJP failed to break the jinx of repeated failures in Parliamentary byelections in 2018 when it was defeated yesterday in Gorakhpur, the bastion of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, and Phulpur, earlier held by deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya.

The ruling partys candidates in the two constituencies lost to the Samajwadi Party (SP), triggering a debate on whether political outfits opposed to the BJP could forge a mega alliance before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

The SP, supported by the BSP, romped home in the bypolls.

SPs Pravin Nishad defeated Upendra Dutt Shukla of the BJP by 21,961 votes in Gorakhpur, a seat which had been with the BJP since 1989. Nagendra Pratap Singh Patel of SP cornered the Phulpur seat, drubbing the saffron partys Kaushalendra Singh Patel by 59,460 votes.

As the results of the two by-election were declared yesterday, Adityanath said there was a “lesson” to be learnt from the outcome, and cited over-confidence and the inability to understand the implications of the pact between SP and BSP as the prime reasons for the BJPs defeat.

UP Congress spokesperson Ashok Singh told PTI the outcome had brightened the prospects of the formation of a “maha gathbandhan” (grand alliance) ahead of the 2019 polls to defeat the saffron party.

“We will ponder seriously about a larger alliance keeping the next Lok Sabha polls in mind,” he said. The Congress had contested the 2017 UP Assembly polls jointly with the SP and might want to tackle the polls together next year, too, another senior party leader told PTI, requesting that he not be named.

The outcome of the March 11 bypolls has sparked talk in political circles about a continuing pact between the SP and the BSP — once bitter critics in Uttar Pradesh.