Assembly Election Results 2018: BJP set to introspect what went wrong

The ruling BJP is planning to evaluate and introspect the results to five state assembly elections in the coming days. Sources in the BJP said the party was thinking to revisit its strategy and work on its messaging.

Results have shown that the BJP has fared poorly in rural regions, underlining the need for the party to challenge issues like farm distress and unemployment. Party leaders said that the party's main concern is that despite the Union Cabinet approving many sops for farmers over the past months, they didn't reach to the ground.

Asked if the recent amping up of the Hindutva agenda — like the issue of building Ram temple in Ayodhya and controversial remarks made by many of its leaders including Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath — failed to pay off, party leaders said all these issues would be analysed threadbare at the party forum. "It will take time, but the party will certainly evaluate as to what went wrong," a BJP leader told DNA on condition of anonymity.

Senior BJP leader and Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, "I think the result was certainly not as expected. It is an opportunity to pause and analyse. In both Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh we were in power for 15 years. I don't think there was anti-incumbency, but the fatigue factor did come in."

"Issues in state elections are entirely different. Remember, we won all these states in 2003 December and lost the general elections in 2004? 2019 elections will be around the performance of the Central government and the leadership of Prime Minister Modi," he said.

The party's plan of expanding to five southern states also appears derailed as of now after the saffron party came a distant third in Telangana. It has shown little signs of any revival in other states, except Karnataka where it has long been a strong force. The win of Mizo National Front (MNF), which is a member of the BJP-led North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA), in Mizoram has come as a solace for the party as it has completely edged the Congress out from Northeastern states.

Last year, the party barely scraped through in the Gujarat assembly polls. Earlier, the BJP defeated the Congress in assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and emerged as the single largest party in Karnataka.