Javadekar rejects oppn claim Modi magic on wane, BJP MLAs in UP target state ministers

After the reverses suffered by the BJP in the Lok Sabha and Assembly bypolls, Union minister Prakash Javadekar today rejected the opposition claim that the "Modi magic" was on the wane while some party MLAs in Uttar Pradesh targeted the state ministers with one of them even resorting to poetry.

Dealing a blow to the ruling BJP, opposition parties yesterday won 11 out of 14 Lok Sabha and Assembly bypolls, limiting the saffron party and its allies to just three, and snatching the high-profile Kairana Parliamentary seat in Uttar Pradesh on the back of their new found unity.

Javadekar also claimed that the BJP will return to power at the Centre even stronger after 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

"There is no question of the Modi magic fading. His magic persists and we will emerge even stronger at the Centre after 2019," Javadekar said in an informal chat with reporters in Dehradun on completion of Modi government's four years in office.

Those who look upon yesterday's bypoll results as an expression of public opinion on Narendra Modi government's performance are wrong, he said.

The Congress and other opposition parties termed the jolt to the BJP as the people's mandate against the four years of Modi rule and that the prime minister's "magic" was on the wane.

"Bypolls are different. Voter turnout is low and local factors are at work. Bypoll results cannot be a pointer to what is going to happen in the general elections," he said.

"Modi was not in the picture in the bypolls. He did not go anywhere. So it shouldn't be perceived as a verdict on his government under whom the country is doing well on every front," the minister said.

"We are going to do even better in 2019 than we did in 2014 in a number of states such as Orissa, West Bengal, Kerala and the northeast."