In late February of this year, things were looking very good for the Bharatiya Janata Party. State assembly elections had just finished in Punjab, Uttarkhand and Manipur, with the BJP defeating the Congress party in all but the last. BJP president Rajnath Singh was feeding and being fed celebratory sweets left and right (see pic). In the media, against the backdrop of inflation and the rising price of basic foodstuffs, these results were interpreted as a general turning away from the Congress. The BJP's subsequent decisive victory in the Delhi municipal elections in early April seemed to confirm its rise; the party's dismal performance in 2006's state assembly elections was all but forgotten. Admittedly, in Assam, Kerala, Pondicherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal the BJP won a meagre 10 out of 542 seats contested – all 10 of which came in Assam. But perhaps the BJP leadership saw victory in the defeat of the Congress, which only won in Assam and Pondicherry.
As such, the results in Punjab, Uttarkhand and Delhi in early 2007 were trumpeted as a show of the BJP's new power, and there were high hopes for the party in the forthcoming Uttar Pradesh assembly election. Amidst the uncertainties and complexities of this election, it seemed that the BJP could perform well. Could it even become the state's biggest party? Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party seemed certain to fall, and it was an open question as to who could take its place.
As the UP election began, there was decided anticipation in the media about the BJP. On the flimsy evidence of the recent election results, everyone seemed eager to proclaim the party's rise against the supposed failures of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre. This national political narrative, perpetuated by the English- and Hindi-language media alike, diverted attention from the more politically substantial contest between Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party in UP. Even if the BSP won the most seats, whoever was able to strike a ruling alliance with them, it was thought, the Congress or the BJP, could claim a victory in UP.
Give voters credit for their ability to confound the 'experts'. The BSP won a surprising majority in UP, while the BJP and Congress both received a drubbing and no hope of a coalition. The first inkling of disaster for the BJP generally was evident during these elections. In mid-April, after three phases of voting in UP, Gujarati BJP MP Babubhai Katara was arrested in a human-smuggling case. He had tried to board a plane bound for Toronto with a woman and a boy posing as his wife and son. The party distanced itself from him, asking to be judged by its swift disciplining of the rogue MP. But throughout the UP election campaign, the BJP had been claiming itself as the 'clean' party, and this new situation gave the BJP its first public black eye.