Follow The Wire’s live coverage of the 2018 assembly election results here.Ballia: As assembly elections results from five states started pouring in, a BJP legislator in UP on Tuesday blamed amendments to the SC/ST Act for the party’s poor show. The saffron party is set to lose three states in the Hindi heartland and BJP’s Bairia legislator said the party can’t win elections by “hurting sentiments of upper castes”.Surendra Singh, who has a history of making controversial statements, said the amendments were “suicidal” for the party.“The BJP cannot register a victory in elections by hurting the sentiments of the savarna (upper castes). The decisions to bring amendments in the SC/ST Act has proved to be suicidal,” Singh told reporters.Also Read: Assembly Results: BJP, Congress Neck and Neck in Madhya PradeshAccording to him, the public has taught a temporary lesson to the BJP. “If the BJP doesn’t reconsider its decision and corrects its course on the SC/ST Act, then results will be wrong for the party in 2019 as well,” he said. He claimed the upper castes have been a traditional vote base of the BJP.Singh has a history of speaking out against the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act. In August, he asked non-Dalits to vote for NOTA in reserved constituencies. “Let all see where Dalits go on their own and who wins just by their votes,” he said, adding that he would launch an agitation against the law.Singh has also made casteist, communal and misogynistic comments in the past.Singh compared Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati to a “buffalo”, saying she could not be taught any etiquette. He called her corrupt and said if the BJP tried to impart some ‘sanskar‘ to her, it would be in vain.The Bairia MLA also launched an attack on West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, calling her ‘Surpanakha’ for allegedly turning a blind eye towards violence against Hindus.He also made headlines for defending fellow BJP MLA Kuldeep Sengar, the accused in the Unnao rape case. Singh had said, “I am speaking from the psychological point of view, no one can rape a mother of three children. It is not possible. This is a conspiracy against him [Sengar].”In July, Singh claimed the majority status of the Hindu population was under threat. He requested Hindu couples to have “at least five children” to “balance the population”. His statements indicate a reference to the popular myth of Muslim population soon overtaking the Hindu population, which has been debunked several times over.
