Gorakhpur debacle won’t happen again: Rajnath Singh

Undaunted by the Gorakhpur bypolls defeat, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday said the BJP realises that loss is also a possibility in the election. “What happened in Gorakhpur will not happen again because we know that this result is also a possibility,” Singh said at News18’s Rising India Summit.

The remarks come after the BJP lost in the bypolls conducted in Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha seats. The loss is being seen by political experts as a wake-up call as Gorakhpur was earlier held by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, while Phulpur’s elected representative was Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya. Interestingly, Adityanath won the Gorakhpur seat  five times, making it a BJP bastion.

Soon after Gorakhpur bypoll defeat, Adityanath admitted that overconfidence and failing to gauge the pre-poll understanding between Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party.

Rajnath Singh, however, seemed unperturbed by Congress President Rahul Gandhi’s attacks on BJP and the Modi government. “Time will tell against whom India was rising,” Singh said, adding: “He is our opposition leader and he will keep saying things (against the government) but only time will tell against whom the country is rising,”

Soon after the defeat, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath blamed overconfidence for failing to realise the importance of the pre-poll understanding between Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party.