Election results: How BJP’s ‘tsunami’ in UP was captured on Twitter
PM Narendra Modi looked set to tighten his grip on power with early trends showing his party leading in the key battleground of Uttar Pradesh.
Dubbing BJP’s stellar performance in Uttar Pradesh as a “tsunami and not a ripple in the pond”, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah was among the first off the block to acknowledge the Opposition’s feat. In a tweet that set the tone for such acknowledgment, Abdullah said: “At this rate we might as well forget 2019 & start planning/hoping for 2024.”
A former ally of the Congress in the National Democratic Alliance, the National Conference leader also rejected JNU students’ union leader Shehla Rashid’s dismissal of the BJP win as an electoral factor instead of a clear mandate from the people. “ All our elections are won with a first-past-the-post arithmetic & let’s not deny that BJP has clearly won the hearts of the majority of UP,” he said.
BJP’s homecoming in Uttar Pradesh after nearly two-decades of being out of favour and its performance in Uttarakhand and Manipur, where it has never had a legislator, was largely perceived on social media as a big win for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
There were fewer ‘we-told-you-so’ comments on social media, as most users admitted they had not expected such a landslide win for the party in UP. The caste arithmetic that was used to project results also came under sharp criticism.
Rivals, including the ruling Samajwadi Party, had warned that demonetisation would affect the BJP badly in the elections. “People will also stand in lines in 2017 assembly polls to teach them (BJP) a lesson,” UP CM Akhilesh Yadav had said in December. But the note ban failed to derail BJP’s success in the state polls.
Memes and Gifs were the fodder to parse the AAP’s dismal performance in Punjab, and the Congress’ rout in Uttar Pradesh.
Meanwhile, PM Modi also acknowledged the win and in a series of tweets thanked the voters.