A day after the civic poll results in Uttar Pradesh were declared, former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on Saturday contested the notion that the BJP has “swept” the polls in the State.
“After media reports on Q2 GDP and U.P. local bodies, Oxford and Webster should re-define the words ‘surge’ and ‘sweep’,” Mr Chidamabaram tweet.
In another tweet, he said, “BJP is indeed the winner in U.P. and congratulations are in order, but is winning about 28% of all contested posts a ‘sweep’?”
The former UPA minister followed up his tweet with an analysis of the election results. He said the BJP didn’t “sweep” the polls since the municipal polls were not about mayor’s posts alone. The BJP won 14 of the 16 Mayor posts.
Analysing the data put up by the State Election Commission, Mr Chidamabaram said that about 70% of the posts were won by independents. He said the media was calling it a “saffron sweep” as they have only focussed on elections for Mayor posts.
Following the civic poll results, the BJP had targeted Congress vice-President Rahul Gandhi, who has led the party’s campaign in Gujarat. The Congress lost in Mr Gandhi’s Lok Sabha constituency Amethi and that prompted U.P. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to say that “those who are questioning the Gujarat polls should learn from the lessons and work on the ground in Amethi.”
