Riding high on Bengal success, liberal media uses Panchayat elections to predict BJP’s rout in assembly elections

The recent announcement of the UP Panchayat elections has given another opportunity to liberal media and its liberal political agents to target BJP. It is being reported that BJP suffered losses in the election and especially in Mathura, Varanasi and Prayagraj region where the party wields considerable influence.

While the so-called political pundits are giving all sorts of reasoning to predict an impending rout for the BJP, one needs to understand how the Panchayat elections exactly work. In most cases, the elections to a Panchayat are fought by individuals who might not even have the backing of a political party. Sure, parties do support them from outside in certain cases but none actively participate or publicize the candidates.

On numerous occasions, the voters do not even know which party the candidate they have voted for belongs to, thus rendering the entire discussion about BJP or any other party winning or losing useless.

Shekhar Gupta’s The Print came up with a deep, cutthroat analysis of the election that any layman without any prior knowledge about politics would have churned up. The Print practically claimed that BJP was getting decimated in the next assembly polls.

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“Setback in UP panchayat polls is a wake-up call for Yogi Adityanath government. ‘Brand Yogi’ is taking a beating due to the inept handling of the Covid crisis. It underscores the limitations of polarising politics and governance. Modi and Yogi have too much at stake in UP to sleep at the wheel.” read the 50-word edit.

Similarly, an out-of-favour politician and a failed psephologist, Yogendra Yadav took this as an opportunity to peddle his agenda of keeping the Farmer’s protest alive. The former AAP leader claimed that election results were directly linked to the Farmer’s protest.

Esteemed members of the hate-Modi, Yogi club Prashant Kanojia and Prashant Bhushan also had their moment under the sun as they could not contain their glee at the supposed loss of BJP.

Thus, if a liberal journalist is dissecting the Panchayat elections to paint a dystopian picture for Yogi Adityanath and his government in the 2022 assembly election then they are simply at their wit’s end and looking to make themselves feel good about the reality. It is imperative to note that in the 2015 Panchayat polls, BSP backed candidates won the election, however in the 2017 state assembly polls, the Mayawati led party managed to muster only 17 seats. The reader can make the requisite inference from this state.