Everyone in the country as well as Indians staying abroad were hugely surprised about BJP losing the Ayodhya or Faizabad Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh.
BJP lost the Ayodhya constituency despite building the Ram Temple.The defeat from the place, which is close to the heart of the BJP leaders, and Ram temple movement, the issue that brought the party to the Centre, have left many stunned.
After 500 years, the majority Hindu community got Lord Ramlalla to sit inside a grand temple and till date after the congregation of the idol on January 22 by Prime minister Narendra Modi, over 25 million people have visited the new temple.
Then why did the local people reject BJP candidate Lallu Singh is an issue that has sparked widespread speculation regarding its underlying reasons.
But if we go a little in the past, the BJP lost the first elections in UP in 1993 after the demolition of the Babri disputed site. In this election too, the BJP, led by Ram temple crusader Kalyan Singh, could win just 177 seats while the SP and the BSP under alliance won 109 and 67 seats respectively.
This time also, similar things took place as the BJP lost in Ayodhya after the consecration of the Ram temple.
The local people are also discussing at tea shops and paan shops in Ayodhya as to why BJP lost a seat like Faizabad . They admit that the central and state governments have done a lot of development work in Ayodhya by building Ram temple, airport, international level railway station of Ayodhya Dham, Ram Path and also enhanced the beauty of Ram ki Paidi.
Senior SP leader and MLA Awadhesh Prasad Singh defeated BJP’s two-time sitting MP Lallu Singh.
However, after talking to the locals, it looked like BJP candidate Lallu Singh was not very popular, his arrogance cost him his seat. When Lallu Singh won the 2019 elections, he was heard telling people that people voted for Modi and not him.
Besides, one of the main reasons was locals’ dislocation. When Ram Path was constructed, thousands of shops and houses were demolished but the affected people were not given proper compensation. They were not given reimbursement for the shop and house built on government land. When the local people went to their public representative Lallu Singh, apparently he said that this was a matter of the government and ignored their pleas.
According to a report, thousands of people used to do business on the land owned by Raja of Ayodhya Bimlendra Mohan Pratap Mishra and paid just a nominal rent to him. But after the construction of the Ram temple , the land was acquired by the government . While the Raja received crores of rupees as compensation, the tenants were given just Rs one to two lakh , which was an issue causing great discontent among the local people.
Besides there were reports that several senior BJP leaders were involved in purchasing lands in and around Ayodhya through unlawful means whereas the government was acquiring the land from the farmers at throwaway prices. When the farmers of Noida and other places had received hefty amounts for their land acquired by the government for development purposes, in Ayodhya the farmers received only a meagre amount.
A local resident, Hanuman Singh, said that politics of UP revolved around caste and religion. Casteism dominated this election. Neither the issue of temple nor development or inflation came into play, only religion and casteism dominated this election.
A shopkeeper Jeeshan Ahmed says that Lallu Singh never listened to the voice of the public. ”Whenever the public went to him when their shops and houses were being demolished during the construction of Ram Path and for compensation as people go to their representatives for such issues, he ignored them saying that this is a matter of the government,” he said.
Businessman Ajay Nishad said that Ram temple was built in Ayodhya, development also took place, all this is fine but during the construction of Ram Path, the shops of poor shopkeepers were demolished and they were not given proper compensation.
Street vendors were chased away with sticks. All this indicates why the poor class did not vote for Lallu Singh. The biggest weapon that the poor have is his vote and that is what the public did.
The public seemingly taught a lesson to the BJP. At the same time, some people are sad over the defeat of Lallu Singh. Another resident Ramesh said that despite doing everything, the BJP lost. “We are sad that Lallu Singh lost, but something was definitely missing somewhere,” he said.
Of the nine Lok Sabha constituencies falling in the Ayodhya region, the BJP lost from five. In 2019, it won seven of these seats. The constituencies from which the party lost included Faizabad, under which the Ram Temple falls, which was won by the Samajwadi Party’s Awadhesh Prasad Singh, a Dalit fielded from a general category seat. The BJP had won the constituency in both 2014 and 2019.
Though the loss margin of Lallu Singh was not so big at 55,000 but the vote percentage gap was around 5 per cent.
Surprisingly, Lallu won the 2019 polls by a similar margin of around 65,000 votes. But in 2014 , the BJP had a landslide win with over 2.80 lakh votes margin.