Coming within months since the Prime Minister announced the demonetisation move, the stunning victory in Uttar Pradesh and improved performance in Uttarakhand and Manipur have come not only as a major reprieve to Narendra Modi but would heighten party president Amit Shah's image as a performing "poll strategist".
The big take away for the BJP from this year's polls in country's most populous state, according to party insiders, has been the success of party leaders to convince the electorate that the ban on high value old Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes was essentially not anti-poor.
In effect, it means the lethal power of 'Modi magic' as was seen in parliamentary polls of 2014 still remains undiluted in more ways than one.Within no time the trends for the elections came in, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said the mandate in UP especially showed that the people have rejected the opposition charge that demonetisation was anti-poor. "Its simple. UP results show that people supported demonetisation," said UP BJP spokesperson Mohsin Raza.
"Now that BJP has won UP, these results are a big slap to everyone criticising 'note-bandi' demonetisation," said an enthusiastic BJP worker Pranab Rai, as he distributed sweets to equally jubilant party supporters and cadres.
The opposition parties especially the Congress had tried to make note-ban a major electoral issue.
But the mandate today finally shows people have rather chosen to endorse Mr Modi’s "most controversial policy move" when he had declared about 86 per cent of India’s paper currency illegal. "Demonetisation had caused severe shock," said Congress leader RPN Singh and on the eve of vote count yesterday, another Congress leader Abhishekmanu Singhvi said the election results would not, however, change the 'fact' that the demonetisation was a "historic blunder".
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