On 3rd December (Sunday), the Election Commission of India announced the assembly election results for Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, and Telangana. Out of these four, the Samajwadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav particularly targeted Madhya Pradesh assembly elections. 71 SP candidates tried their luck in MP after it had a fallout with its I.N.D.I. Alliance partner Congress.
Samajwadi Party (SP) national president Akhilesh Yadav even led a relentless campaign against Congress while seeking votes for his party candidates and making poll promises. During his election rallies, Akhilesh Yadav presented SP as a viable alternative for both Congress and BJP. Appealing to the electorates not to cast votes for Congress candidates, Akhilesh expressed hope that the Congress party would be defeated by a coalition of smaller parties under the PDA umbrella in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Akhilesh even accused his I.N.D.I. alliance partner Congress of “betrayal” and not giving it due respect and seats as ‘had been promised’ during midnight discussions with state leadership, as claimed by SP leaders.
However, SP registered its worst performance in MP since 1998. It could not even open its account and got the lowest vote share to date. It only received 0.46% votes in this election, which is less than NOTA (0.98%). It received total votes of 1,97,935 in the state as against 4,27,710 votes cumulatively polled for NOTA. Interestingly, SP made an undesirable record and about 98.5915% (70/71 candidates) of its candidates lost deposits, and around 49 out of 71 candidates lost to NOTA (69%). Further, around 54 SP candidates failed to secure even 1% of the total valid votes.
Despite contesting 71 odd seats, the party could not even manage to finish in second position in any of these seats. Previously, SP used to get maximum electoral presence and influence in Madhya Pradesh outside its home turf Uttar Pradesh. In 1998, it won four seats in Madhya Pradesh and bagged a 1.58% vote share.
Similarly, in 2007, the party secured a 3.7% vote share. In subsequent elections in 2008 and 2018, it won one seat each and received 1.9% and 1.3% vote share respectively. Even in 2013, when the party failed to win any seat, its vote share was around 1.2%. This time, it has worsened.
Out of the 71 SP candidates, 45 got less than one thousand votes. However, in four assembly seats, it did manage to play spoilsports for Congress and ended up cutting votes in Bahoriband, Chandla, Jatara, and Niwari. BJP won all four of these seats.
Congress and SP tussle during Madhya Pradesh election campaigning
The infighting that began after disputes on the seat-sharing formula in Madhya Pradesh soon escalated into rift between I.N.D.I.A. partners Congress and Samajwadi Party, with both party leaders making scathing remarks against each other. SP Chief Akhilesh publicly expressed his displeasure and accused Congress of not forming an alliance in the state. He accused the Congress of cheating and asserted that if there is no alliance for the state assembly elections, he will consider the same for the Lok Sabha elections. Congress state president Kamalnath responded to media queries on SP Chief’s disagreements saying leave aside ‘Akhilesh-Vakhilesh‘.
Following the election results, Samajwadi Party leader Sudhir Panwar claimed that the performance of the SP and Congress has made three things clear. Explaining this in detail, he said, ‘First of all, despite the formation of I.N.D.I. Alliance, Congress’s decision to contest the elections alone proved wrong. Secondly, this proves that the strength of the organisation is necessary to compete with the BJP. The bottom line is that BJP governments are running schemes like Kisan Samman Nidhi and Laadli Behna through DBT and the opposition has no answer to this.”