BJP's loss in Uttar Pradesh's Faizabad constituency, where the Ram Mandir stands, just months after the consecration of the temple in Ayodhya, is seen as a significant setback for the party this election season.
BJP's Lallu Singh lost the seat to the Samajwadi Party candidate Awadhesh Prasad by a margin of over 54,000 votes. Lallu Singh had been the Faizabad MP since 2014.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav commented on the victory, attributing the BJP's loss to their actions regarding land acquisition in Ayodhya. He criticized the BJP for forcibly taking land from the poor without providing adequate compensation. He argued that the injustice done to the locals in the name of a sacred project, like the construction of the Ram Mandir, led to their defeat.
"The truth is that the BJP would have lost even more seats in Uttar Pradesh. I thank the people of Ayodhya. You would have seen the pain of Ayodhya from time to time. They (people) were not given adequate compensation for their land, injustice was done to them, their land was not acquired at par with the market price, you snatched their land forcibly by slapping false cases against them...you destroyed the poor for a sacred work. That is why I think the people of Ayodhya and neighbouring areas voted against the BJP," said Akhilesh Yadav.
The BJP's major poll plank for the 2024 Lok Sabha election was the construction of the temple at the Ram Janmabhoomi site in Ayodhya. The surprising defeat in Faizabad has sparked debates and is attributed to various factors such as the alienation of OBCs and Dalits from the party, Akhilesh Yadav's effective caste-based coalition, and local resentment due to inadequate compensation for land acquired for Ayodhya's development.
The BJP's loss in Faizabad was compounded by another defeat in Shravasti, a Lok Sabha seat 100 kilometers away. In Shravasti, SP's Ram Shiromani Verma defeated BJP's Saket Misra, the son of Nripendra Misra, who heads the construction of the Ayodhya Ram Temple. This double blow highlights the challenges BJP faced in the region despite their emphasis on the Ram Mandir project.
