New Delhi, Nov. 10: If Firozabad virtually obliterated Mulayam Singh Yadav’s dominance over his terrain, Lucknow buried the last vestige of Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Uttar Pradesh’s political history.

The BJP was mortified by the defeat of Amit Puri, its candidate from Lucknow (West), a seat it had never lost since 1989. The loss in Kolasala, also in Uttar Pradesh, seemed less embarrassing in comparison.

Lucknow (West) had a record of turning in bigger margins for Vajpayee in every Lok Sabha election he fought since 1991 from the city.

What was more galling for the party was that in the 2007 Assembly polls, Vajpayee’s constituency minder Lalji Tandon had won the seat against daunting odds. He vacated it on being elected from Lucknow as an MP this year in Vajpayee’s place, after doing a symbolic act from the Ramayan of how Bharat had placed Ram’s padukas (footwear) on his throne when he was exiled for 14 years.

But nobody believed that an ailing and immobile Vajpayee would return from vanvas (exile) to reclaim the Lucknow seat.

Tandon sulked because his son Ashutosh was passed up for Puri, and stayed away from the campaign.

Puri waved before voters an “appeal” from Vajpayee, though nobody in the party could vouch for its veracity. Lucknow’s voters, once besotted with “Atalji”, knew who the real McCoy was.

“It confirms our fear that the upper caste and upper class urban votes have shifted to the Congress,” a BJP source said. Puri lost to a Congress Brahmin, Shyam Kishore Shukla, just as Tandon had won by a whisker against another Congress Brahmin, Rita Bahuguna Joshi, this May.

The BJP didn’t miss the irony in the ticket denial to Tandon’s son. Dynastic politics was rejected by Uttar Pradesh voters in the by-elections: Mulayam Singh Yadav’s daughter-in-law lost, as did relatives of central ministers R.P.N. Singh and Pradeep Jain.

Other reverses

In Chhattisgarh, the BJP lost the Vaishali Nagar seat in Durg to the Congress. In Himachal, the BJP was defeated in Jwali but won a small consolation by bagging Congress stronghold Rohru.