Gujarat Assembly Election 2017 Results: Akhilesh Yadav says outcome indicative of 'beginning of end' of BJP

Lucknow: Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday said the Gujarat Assembly poll results were indicative of the “beginning of the end” of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In a tweet, the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said the fact that the party claiming to win 150 plus seats had gone down to two digits showed that it had fallen from grace in the eyes of the voters. BJP’s poor showing in Gujarat, the party’s erstwhile stronghold, was because the party had failed to address issues farmers were facing and had neglected the poor, he said.

गुजरात में भाजपा का दो अंकों में सिमट जाना उनके पतन की शुरुआत है. ये गाँव, ग़रीब और ग्रामीण की उपेक्षा का नतीजा है. ये भाजपा की तथाकथित जीत है.

— Akhilesh Yadav (@yadavakhilesh) December 18, 2017

In an election when the prime minister, many chief ministers and Union ministers camped in the state for days, the results are dismal for the BJP, Akhilesh Yadav said. [caption id=“attachment_4204853” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav. AFP[/caption] The Gujarat poll results had also shown that despite no work on the ground how vulnerable were the voters to be swayed to issues irrelevant to them, said SP spokesman Rajendra Chowdhary, speaking for the party chief. He also accused the BJP of trying “all tricks up their sleeves” to win the elections, including casteism and communalism. The party leader also said the end of the BJP would come in 2019 and that a reflection of this was for everyone to see in the poor tally of the BJP in Gujarat, a state it has ruled for 22 years. The SP had also contested on five seats in the state but lost all. It had said that it was leaving the rest of the seats for the Congress as it did not want to divide the secular vote.