UP bypolls: Congress takes a dig at BS Yeddyurappa, asks him to 'stop bowing' before Yogi Adityanath

Bengaluru: After the setback to the saffron party in the two Uttar Pradesh Lok Sabha bypolls, the Congress on Wednesday took a dig at Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) chief ministerial candidate BS Yeddyurappa for the upcoming Karnataka Assembly elections.

"Mr Yeddyurappa, at least now, show some self-respect and stop bowing to an outsider who can't even win his own seat," the party's official Twitter handle posted.

Mr. Yeddyurappa, at-least now, show some self respect, and stop bowing to an outsider who can't even win his own seat!

#KannadaSwabhimana pic.twitter.com/pK2raRdkea — Karnataka Congress (@INCKarnataka) March 14, 2018

The saffron party on Wednesday lost bypolls to all three Lok Sabha seats it contested, including its bastion Gorakhpur, besides Phulpur in UP. It also lost Araria in Bihar.

A consolidation of OBC, Dalit and Muslim votes powered Samajwadi Party candidates to victory in Gorakhpur, a seat represented by Yogi for five successive terms and Phulpur, which elected his deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. BJP had won Phulpur for the first time.

SP's Pravin Nishad defeated BJP's Upendra Dutt Shukla by 21,961 votes in Gorakhpur, the seat which was with the party since 1989. On the other hand, Nagendra Pratap Singh Patel of SP clinched the Phulpur seat drubbing the saffron party's Kaushalendra Singh Patel by 59,460 votes.

The BJP had scored a thumping victory in UP in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and together with ally Apna Dal, had won 73 of the states 80 seats. The NDA allies had polled 43.3 percent votes.

Stunned by the defeat, Yogi said that the party's performance in two Lok Sabha bypolls was a lesson for them. "When the candidates were declared, the SP, BSP and Congress were not together. They had not joined hands then. But suddenly in the middle of the election, the SP and the BSP forged an electoral understanding," he told the media from his residence.

"The over-confidence and inability to understand the electoral understanding between the SP and the BSP led to the defeat," Yogi accepted. He also said that local issues led to BJP's poor performance in bypolls, not policies of Centre.

(With Agency inputs)