Setback for BJP as Faizabad picks Samajwadi candidate Awadhesh Prasad

In the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) strategically leveraged the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, situated within the Faizabad constituency of Uttar Pradesh, as a pivotal rallying point to garner support from Hindu voters in the Hindi heartland and beyond.

However, as the results of the Lok Sabha elections unfolded on June 4, the party stared at a massive setback with Samajwadi Party candidate Awadhesh Prasad leading by a margin of over 48,000 votes over his nearest BJP rival Lallu Singh.

Lallu Singh, the sitting MP from the seat won the Faizabad constituency in the 2019 elections with 529051 votes.

The latest election trends in Ayodhya assume significance as the Ram temple of Ayodhya has been the fulcrum of BJP's politics in the 1990s, which had catapulted it significantly at the national level.

During campaigning, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Barabanki and Hamirpur on May 17 had claimed that the Congress and the Samajwadi Party would run a bulldozer over the Ram temple if elected to power, and asked them to take lessons from Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on where bulldozers should be used instead.

On January 22, an idol of the new Ram Lalla was consecrated at the Ayodhya temple, in a landmark event led by the prime minister who also gave a clarion call to go beyond the grand mandir's construction to build the foundation of a "strong, capable and divine" India of the next 1,000 years.

With PTI inputs