Image Source: AGENCIES

Lucknow, Dec 29 Beginning the year with a big win in the assembly polls, the BJP also breached the Samajwadi Party citadels in Azamgarh and Rampur – building momentum for 2024 General Election. The party conquered Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan’s bastion in Rampur, winning the bye-elections for the Lok Sabha seat and the Rampur Sadar assembly constituency, which had elected Khan 10 times in a row. But its winning streak broke with bypoll defeats in Mainpuri Lok Sabha constituency -- which had fallen vacant after the death of SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav – and the Khatauli assembly segment it had won in the 2017 and the 2022 state elections. The year saw controversies over the use of bulldozers to demolish properties of alleged gangsters, and a revival of sorts of temple-mosque disputes in Varanasi and Mathura.