BJP’s Clean Sweep Of Eight Lakhimpur Kheri Assembly Seats Was No Surprise For Awadh!

There is a sense of awe that the BJP picked up all the eight assembly seats in Lakhimpur Kheri, Uttar Pradesh, with a comfortable majority. BJP sources said Lakhimpur Kheri which is barely 100 km away from Lucknow, couldn’t have voted differently from the rest of Awadh, a region hamstrung by poverty that boasts an eclectic mix of voters comprising poor Brahmins, Kurmis and other OBCs. What about anti-BJP sentiments whipped up in the aftermath of the four farmers mowed down by a car linked to Union Minister Ajay Mishra’s son? Sikh farmers belonging to the Terai region did protest against the farm laws. Apparently, the protest did not find peoples’ favour. Four lives were also lost in the immediate aftermath of the car encounter, through public lynching that rubbed off any public sympathy or BJP antipathy, over the incident. Another optic BJP overcame was of bodies floating across the Ganges during the Covid-19 pandemic that was played up to the hilt by the opposition combine. Fact being, shallow burials along the riverside is common practice among the poor of central and eastern UP. It was not the first time this occurred; it happened in 2015 and 2018 too.  In Western UP, the BJP managed to win 46 of the 58 seats, even retaining tricky propositions like in Deoband because of the SP-RLD tie-up.