Rajnath Singh downplays BJP's defeat in Cantonment Board polls

Senior BJP leader and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday sought to downplay the humiliating defeat of candidates fielded or backed by his party in the just-concluded Cantonment Board elections in Uttar Pradesh, saying it was wrong to say that the party lost.

"It's wrong to say that party (BJP) tasted defeat in the Cantonment Board polls. The party had not fielded any candidate in these polls," Singh said. He was speaking to reporters on the sidelines after a convocation ceremony at Baba Saheb Bhim Rao Ambedkar University here.

BJP suffered a big jolt in the Cantonment Board polls when all the candidates supported by it in Varanasi -- Prime Minister Narendra Modi's parliamentary constituency -- and Lucknow lost. BJP won just one seat in Agra and finished second in Bareilly and Mathura. The drubbing for BJP in Varanasi and Lucknow -- the home turf of Rajnath Singh -- came nearly eight months after it had scored a landslide victory bagging 71 of the 80 seats in the state in the Lok Sabha elections last May. BJP had either fielded its own candidates or extended support to Independents in the Cantonment Board elections held on Sunday after a gap of five years.