In the final tally, the BJP won 62 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh falling nine short of 2014 figure. Its ally Apna Dal won two seats taking the NDA's tally in Uttar Pradesh to 64 out of 80 Lok Sabha seats.

The coming together of arch rivals, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party did not work for them. The grand-alliance parties could win only 15 Lok Sabha seats. The BSP got 10 of these seats and the SP won five.

The third grand-alliance constituent, the Rashtriya Lok Dal failed to open its account. RLD chief and former Union minister Ajit Singh and his son Jayant Chaudhary lost to their BJP rivals in Muzaffarnagar and Baghpat respectively.

For record, the Congress won just one Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh with Sonia Gandhi retaining Raebareli constituency for fifth time in a row. However, her victory margin was half of what it was in 2014.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi lost Lok Sabha election from Amethi to Union minister Smriti Irani. Rahul Gandhi had won Amethi Lok Sabha seat three times - 2004, 2009 and 2014 - earlier.

The election results in Uttar Pradesh bear stamp of electoral magic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and booth-level poll management of BJP president Amit Shah, who had been given the charge of the most populous state in 2014 Lok Sabha election.

Caste arithmetic

Caste calculus has played a significant role in elections in Uttar Pradesh. Since the emergence of parties like the SP, the BSP and the RLD in mid-1990s, caste-allegiance was the norm of politics. So, the SP would count on the support of the Yadavs and Muslims. The BSP would depend on Dalits and engineered a winning formula by wooing Brahmins. The RLD flexed its political muscle with Jat power in western Uttar Pradesh.

The OBCs form about 45 per cent of total population in Uttar Pradesh. Yadavs are about nine per cent but dominate both politics and agriculture in the state.

Dalits constitute about 21 per cent of voters in Uttar Pradesh. Jatav and its subcastes form the largest bloc among Dalits with over 56 per cent share. Pasis form about 16 per cent followed by Dhobi, Bamiki, Dhanuk and Khatik.

The BJP, which had fallen out of favour in electoral politics since the turn of the century, focused on a strategy to target non-Yadav non-Jatav castes from the blocs of OBC and Dalits. The party also tried to reach out to Brhamins - 12 per cent votes and Rajputs - seven per cent votes since 2014 polls with its Hindutva campaign.

Arithmetic tested okay but...

The BJP tasted success with this formula in 2014 Lok Sabha election and repeated it in 2017 assembly election. The first shock to the BJP came in the byelection to the three Lok Sabha seats - Gorakhpur, Phulpur and Kairana - after 2017.

The SP, the BSP and the RLD came together in the bypolls against the BJP, which had overwhelmed all other parties in 2014 and 2017 polls. In 2014, the BJP alone got 42.3 per cent of total votes polled in Uttar Pradesh. The SP got 22.2 per cent while the BSP secured 19.6 per cent votes in 2014. This means the combined vote share of the SP-BSP was lower than the BJP's in the last Lok Sabha polls.

In 2017 state election, the BJP's vote share came down to 39.5 per cent while the combined vote share of SP-BSP was 44.1 per cent (21.9+22.2). The BJP won 312 seats while the SP got 47 and the BSP had to be content with 19.

Adding the RLD's vote share, the voting percentage of the alliance goes up to 42.5 per cent in 2014 Lok Sabha election and 45.9 per cent in 2017 state polls.

The humbling defeat in the 2017 polls forced the two parties, rivaling for power in the state for around 25 years in Uttar Pradesh, to come together for the Lok Sabha bypolls. They took the RLD onboard for its appeal in the western UP.

The arithmetic seemed favourable.

The alliance wrested Gorakhpur, held by the BJP since 1991 - UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and his guru Mahendra Avedyanath. They also defeated the BJP in Phulpur, which the party had won for the first time in 2014, when UP Deputy CM Keshav Chandra Maurya was elected to the Lok Sabha.

Later, the SP-BSP-RLD alliance seized Kairana Lok Sabha seat in byelection. The three victories convinced the alliance partners that they would be defeating the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha election banking on their caste equation and committed vote bank.

But the final election result showed that Brand Modi and Shah's booth management trumped the arithmetic calculation of past polls.