Why Akhilesh and Mayawati could not stop Modi wave despite winning more votes than BJP

It seems difficult to find a counterpoint in Uttar Pradesh, a state where the BJP has won a massive and, more importantly, a decisive victory by bagging close to 80 per cent of the 403 Assembly seats.

Though theoretical, there is nevertheless a contrast: if counted together, across Uttar Pradesh, the sum of the votes polled by Akhilesh Yadav's and Mayawati's candidates exceeded those of the BJP by a huge number.

The BJP bagged 3,44,03,039 votes, or 39.7 per cent of the share to bag 312 seats.

On the other hand, Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi party garnered 1,89,23,689 votes, which was 21.8 per cent of the votes polled whereas Mayawati's BSP ended up with 22.2 per cent or 1,92,81,352 votes.

The joint vote tally of Akhilesh and Mayawati settles at 3,82,05,041, surpassing BJP's dream tally of 3.44 crore votes by more than 38 lakhs.

And, if you add the Congress' share of 6.2 per cent (54,16,324 votes) to the tally, the number goes up to more than 92 lakh votes.

There exists a counterpoint: the joint tally of votes polled by Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and the Congress exceeds BJP's share by more than 92 lakh votes.

The three parties cornered support from more than half of the electorate. Their joint tally of 50.2 per cent looks decisively higher than BJP's 39.7 per cent.

Constituency by constituency, the sum of the votes polled by SP, BSP and Congress, in theory, changes the nature of the UP Assembly election result.

It could have given Akhilesh, Rahul Gandhi and Mayawati 263 seats, leaving the BJP-led alliance just 135 seats against the 312 that they currently have in the UP Assembly.

The divided regional players also led to sharp division in their vote banks, helping the BJP win 62 of the 82 Muslim-dominated constituencies in Uttar Pradesh.

Evidently, the Muslim vote was split between the SP and the BSP in these seats with more than 30 per cent of the Muslim electorate.

In a majority of these constituencies both or one of the SP/ INC and BSP had a Muslim candidate, which apparently split the Muslim voter between the SP and the BSP.

Routed in their backyard, the two regional satraps of Uttar Pradesh, Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati, need to look no further than Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar for inspiration.

Shortly after a resurgent NDA under Narendra Modi swept Nitish Kumar's JD-U as well as Lalu Prasad's RJD in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the Bihar chief minister did not waste time in reaching out to old rival RJD boss.

The two stitched a political realignment in Bihar, which changed the political landscape of the state.

The Lok Sabha poll results in 2014 had reduced the JD-U to two seats from its earlier strength of 20, with RJD just managing to retain four seats.

The BJP-led NDA, on the other hand, then walked away with 31 of Bihar's 40 Lok Sabha seats.

Nitish's JD(U) had contested the 2014 Lok Sabha polls in an alliance with the CPM, and Lalu Prasad's RJD joined hands with the Congress and the NCP.

Though it seemed difficult in the beginning, as both Lalu and Nitish had to forgo two decades of intense rivalry, the two leaders saw the writing on the wall and joined hands to reap rich dividends only a year later, when together they routed the BJP in the Assembly polls.

Though the BJP still bagged 24.4 per cent votes - more than any other party in Bihar Assembly polls - it was no match to the combined might of Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad.

The "grand alliance" of the JDU (16.85 per cent of the vote share), RJD (18.35 per cent of the vote share) - along with the Congress (6.66 per cent) swept Bihar with a combined vote share of 41.86 per cent - winning 178 seats in a House of 243.

The BJP won just 53 seats.

Shortly after the election results on March 11, Nitish Kumar took a thinly veiled dig at the Samajwadi Party and the BSP for "paving the way for a BJP victory".

A big proportion of backward castes supported BJP in UP.

Non- BJP parties did not do anything to unite them. Besides, there was no move to form a Bihar - like grand alliance there," Nitish said in a tweet.

Kumar had, in the past, advised the SP and the BSP to join hands to stitch a Bihar-like grand alliance, though his appeal fell on deaf ears.

Though young, Akhilesh Yadav stares an uncertain future with Modi juggernaut steamrolling all-conventional voting equations in UP.

Mayawati faces a bigger threat of being reduced to irrelevance.

The four-term UP chief minister was comprehensively defeated in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, but the slide in UP Assembly polls, which left BSP slipped from its previous tally of 80 Assembly seats in 2012 to 18 now, has raised a question mark over Mayawati's future.

Akhilesh and Mayawati could not see what Nitish saw in 2014 - that it was difficult for regional satraps to stop the Modi juggernaut alone.

Akhilesh also apparently had a delayed realisation when a day before counting of votes, he hinted being open to a partnership with his "Bua (aunt)", a respectful reference to Mayawati.

But, it was too little and too late.

Also read: PM Modi degree row — Where is the right to information?