Congress ecosystem kept saying that while Mayawati will take Muslim and Dalit votes, Akhilesh will take Yadav votes, and Congress will help defeat BJP by stealing away 'upper caste' votes.
In Western UP, 21 of the 22 Congress candidates have lost deposits, meaning they could not even get 1/6th of the total votes polled. Congress stalwarts like Salman Khurshid and Raj Babbar have lost their deposits.
History may remember the 23rd of May, 2019 as the day when the future of Bengal Politics changed forever. However, it was on the 5th of April, 2017, on the auspicious day of Ram Navami that the seeds of it were sown.