Civic poll results show we will win all 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP in 2019: Yogi Adityanath at HTLS 2017

Chief minister Yogi Adityanath said on Friday the BJP’s sweeping victory in the Uttar Pradesh’s civic elections laid the foundation for the party to win all of the state’s 80 Lok Sabha seats in the 2019 general election.

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s candidates won 14 out of the 16 mayoral seats, including the prestigious Ayodhya and Varanasi municipalities. The 45-year-old chief minister addressed 26 rallies, campaigning in all the 16 municipalities where elections were held.

The CM attributed the BJP’s performance to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s development vision and BJP president Amit Shah’s organisational strategy, saying the party rode on the back of “team spirit” in what was seen as a litmus test for his seven-month-old government.

“Urban bodies have to be made accountable, but they first have to be made competent. I went on a state tour and campaigned because of this,” Adityanath said at the 15th Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.

He said the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and this year’s UP polls indicated the BJP was headed for a “100% result” in 2019.

The Bahujan Samaj Party, which has been sidelined in UP since it lost power in 2012, won the remaining two seats in the civic elections. “They have been fighting well in Aligarh and Meerut. I don’t think there will be any chances for them in the future, “ the CM said.

In an oblique reference to Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, Adityanath said the March assembly elections had proven the two were not youth leaders. “They need to be given a farewell,” he said.

In 2012, the BJP had won 10 of the 12 corporations.

When questioned about the BJP’s loss in Aligarh, the CM said there was a need to study why the party’s candidate lost by 10,000 votes. “We won in Ayodha, Mathura and Kashi. We will find out what happened in Aligarh.”

On the way forward for the civic bodies in UP, Adityanath said: “Municipal corporations have to be decentralised, and not controlled from Lucknow.”