Dealing a body blow to the ruling BJP, opposition parties today emerged victorious in 11 out of 14 bypolls while limiting the saffron party and its allies at just three and snatching the high-profile Kairana Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh with a united force.
With prestige at stake in every single bypoll in run-up to the 2019 general elections, the opposition leaders latched onto today’s results across 11 states to claim sliding popularity of the Narendra Modi-led government, even as the BJP asserted that the PM — which it described as ‘P’ for performance and ‘M’ for Mehnat (hard work) — would decide the Lok Sabha polls next year.
However, opposition leaders saw a big boost for strengthening non-BJP unity with the ruling party losing Kairana Lok Sabha seat in the politically important UP to a united Opposition after a communally-charged election campaign, while similar appeared the result for Bhandara-Gondiya LS constituency in Maharashtra.
The BJP retained another LS seat from Maharashtra, Palghar, where it had faced a challenge from its own ally Shiv Sena but the Opposition could not pose a united fight. BJP’s Rajendra Gavit won the seat, defeating Shiv Sena’s Shrinivas Wanaga.
Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, however, alleged “discrepancies” in counting of votes for Palghar.
In Nagaland, the fourth LS seat for which bypoll was held, went to the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP), a BJP allly in the north-eastern state.
While the LS bypoll results were equally divided at 2-2 between the BJP-led alliance and the opposition parties, figures for the 10 assembly bypolls came as a big setback for the ruling party which could win just one (in Uttarakhand). The Congress bagged three (in Meghalaya, Karnataka and Punjab) and others got six — JMM two in Jharkhand; CPI (M), SP, RJD and Trinamool one each in Kerala, UP, Bihar and West Bengal, respectively.
The Congress also won one assembly seat in Maharashtra without contest after all other parties withdrew their candidates.
The party, which retained RR Nagar assembly seat in Karnataka and another in Meghalaya, termed the bypoll results as the people’s mandate against four years of the Modi rule and the beginning of the end of the BJP empire.
“The writing on the wall is clear. The BJP’s exit and success of the Congress and its allies are guaranteed,” Congress leader Pramod Tiwari told reporters.
The results appeared more marked against the BJP after taking into account the parties that had held these seats earlier. While the BJP alliance retained two LS seats — one in Maharashtra and another in Nagaland — it lost two others — UP’s Kairana and Maharashtra’s Palghar.
In assembly seats, the BJP and its allies failed to retain Noorpur in UP and Shahkot in Punjab, while Congress, CPI (M), Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and Trinamool retained their respective seats.
The BJP retained Tharali in Uttarakhand, but lost Noorpur in UP to the SP. Naeemul Hasan of SP trounced BJP’s Avni Singh in Noorpur.
In Bihar, RJD won Jokihat by defeating BJP ally JD(U) by a huge margin. The result is being seen as a big jolt to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who dumped the RJD and Congress last year to join hands with the BJP to form a new coalition government in the state.
A buoyed Tejashwi Yadav of RJD said Kumar should immediate resign if he has some conscience left.
Commenting on the results, senior BJP leader and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said one has to take two steps backward before a big leap and the BJP is “going to take a massive leap.”
BJP’s Subramanian Swamy, however, had a word of caution for the party and said the “this huge setback in by polls is due to Hubris”.
“But the trend is easily reversible if party stops rewarding sycophancy and has more participatory decision making ethos amongst those leaders whom the public find credible. BJP has infrastructure to bounce back but needs a new ethos,” he said.
AAP leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said the results reflect the anger against the Modi government.
The UP results came as the biggest upset for the BJP with the joint opposition candidate, RLD’s Tabassum Hasan, wining in Kairana. The seat had fallen vacant after death of the BJP candidate Mriganka Singh’s father, Hukum Singh.
Former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav called the results “a defeat of divisive politics”.
CPI (M) leader Sitaram Yechuri said BJP’s loss at its “laboratory of communal and hate politics”, Kairana, clearly showed that people did not accept the ruling party’s governance that is “destroying” the unity and integrity of India. He, however, feared that the loss would push the RSS-BJP to spread communal tensions to consolidate the “Hindutva votebank” ahead of the 2019 general elections.
In Punjab, Congress’ Hardev Singh Ladi wrested Shahkot from the Shiromani Akali Dal. Chief Minister Amarinder Singh hailed the victory as a “vindication” of the government’s people-centric policies.
Trinamool’s Dulal Das won Maheshtala bypoll in West Bengal, defeating BJP’s Sujit Kumar Ghosh. The Left came third. In Kerala, Left’s Saji Cheriyan won Chengannur bypoll. The Congress came second and the BJP third.
JMM retained Silli and Gomia seats in Jharkhand. In Gomia, JMM’s Babita Devi defeated AJSU nominee Lambodar Mahto, while BJP came third. In Silli, JMM’s Seema Mahto defeated AJSU chief Sudesh Mahto. PTI
