In a constituency where Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s inauguration of a large Hindu temple just months prior was perceived as a momentous occasion that would solidify his legacy and the party’s election victory, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of India conceded defeat on Tuesday.
The opposition Samajwadi Party and Congress are leading in more than half of Uttar Pradesh’s 80 seats, including Ayodhya city in the Faizabad constituency, where Modi dedicated the temple in January. The BJP is expected to suffer significant losses in this crucial northern state.
A three-decade-old BJP promise was fulfilled with the opening of the temple dedicated to the god-king Lord Ram, on a site previously contested by India’s minority Muslims. The BJP had mentioned the promise at nearly every campaign rally during the two months of intense voting in the country with a majority of Hindus.
According to the video released by the Indian Express daily, Lallu Singh, the sitting BJP lawmaker from Faizabad, said to party workers, “I could not protect your and Ayodhya’s dignity, there must have been some shortcoming in me.”
“We must have encountered an obstacle in our attempt to win the Ayodhya parliamentary region.”
Singh was elected to the parliament twice by the Faizabad constituency: in 2014 and 2019 when Modi’s party won 71 and 62 seats in Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state in India.
Recent trends from the Election Commission revealed that the BJP had lost seats, bringing its total to 33 in the state. This has caused analysts to focus on two major issues that voters prioritized over religion: high inflation and unemployment.
“While we are delighted about the temple, people were tired of the BJP,” stated Rakesh Yadav, the head of the Ayodhya Vyapar Mandal, an association of traders.
According to him, small business owners were incensed over receiving less money than they had anticipated when their establishments were destroyed during Ayodhya’s reconstruction in advance of the temple’s opening.
Politics between temples and mosques and caste systems won’t always win people over. The results may surprise us all because they also want to see progress, he continued.
Following a bloody, decades-long dispute that saw a Hindu mob destroy a 16th-century mosque on the site, claiming it was built on the birthplace of the god-king, the Supreme Court ordered the construction of the Ram temple.
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