Bhuvan Bhaskar
Although by-elections are always held in India, and by-elections are rarely taken seriously as a political trend, the 3 Lok Sabha and 29 assembly elections on 30 October should be considered as exceptions in this respect. It would be political immaturity to deny the importance of these elections.
The reasons for this are very clear. One, these elections were held in 13 states and secondly, those states include states like Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Assam, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh which for some reason or the other are political parties. Stay at the center of events.
The amazing thing is that these elections have given each party something to save their nose and pat their backs on. But if a neutral analysis is done, both the picture and the message of these elections are very clear.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has suffered a setback in Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan, while the success of the Congress is unexpected.
In Himachal Pradesh, where the BJP lost all the three assembly seats to the Congress, it also lost the Mandi seat in the Lok Sabha. Congress snatched one of the assembly seats from it, while managed to save its two seats. This is the situation when the national president of BJP, which claims to be the world’s largest party, Jai Prakash Nadda comes from this state.
The ruling Congress in Rajasthan is battling a tussle between Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot. Despite this, the Congress was successful in winning both the seats of Dhariyawad and Vallabhnagar. In these, Dhariyawad was with the Congress earlier too, but it snatched the Vallabhnagar seat from the BJP.
It is clear that the BJP, burdened by the personal ambition of former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, is neither in a position to cash in on the public anger over the dusty law and order situation in Rajasthan nor to take advantage of the internal strife within the Congress. is in position.
The results of Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana may not be a big setback for the BJP, but they are certainly worrying. In Karnataka, the Congress snatched the Hangal seat from the BJP, while the Sindgi seat was snatched by the BJP from the JD(S). At first glance, this contest seems neutral, but the BJP’s defeat in Hangal has deep meaning. Hangal has been a stronghold of the BJP.
Hangal is part of Haveri, the home district of newly-appointed Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and he himself was leading the campaign for the by-election. In such a situation, the defeat of BJP in this seat proves that the issue of leadership in the party is still not over. This is an ominous sign for the BJP as it prepares for the 2023 assembly elections under Bommai’s leadership.
Madhya Pradesh had 3 Vidhan Sabha and 1 Lok Sabha seats at stake. Shivraj Singh Chouhan can definitely be called a pass from the first class by putting two assembly and only Lok Sabha seats in the BJP’s bag, but he has missed the distinction. Raigaon, which has traditionally been a seat of the BJP, has been regained by the Congress after 31 years. By the way, the BJP can be satisfied here considering that both the seats it won in the assembly were with the Congress.
In Haryana, Bharatiya Lok Dal’s candidate Abhay Singh Chautala won his own seat from Ellenabad again. Chautala was earlier also an MLA from this seat, but in January he resigned in protest against three agriculture laws. The seat falls in Sirsa district, which has traditionally been a stronghold of the Chautala family.
In this context, despite being the center of the farmers’ movement and the huge influence of the Chautala family, the BJP came second here, losing by just 6700 votes. That is, in the seat where Chautala has been winning for 20 consecutive years, Govind Kanda of BJP got 59189 votes against Abhay Singh Chautala’s 65992 votes, then it will be considered positive for BJP.
The Bengal results have raised more questions than answers for the BJP. Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress won all four seats in West Bengal. Of these, the TMC has snatched the seats of Dinhatta and Shantipur from the BJP, while retaining its Khardah and Gosaba seats. In all these four seats, the TMC got 75% of the votes, while the BJP got only 14.5%.
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Even in the Dinhatta seat that the BJP had won just a few months back, the TMC candidate defeated it by 1.63 lakh votes in the elections held on October 30. Despite coming second in 3 out of four seats, the BJP could not even save its deposit. This plight of BJP in Bengal has many meanings.
After TMC’s victory in the recently held assembly elections in West Bengal, BJP workers were openly attacked, murdered, their houses burnt, raped and over 1 lakh BJP supporters left behind across the state. Such repercussions are understandable, given that he had to take refuge in the neighboring state of Assam.
The National Human Rights Commission itself, while describing the situation in Bengal, said that there was no rule of law. But at the same time, the way the central government turned a blind eye to the atrocities committed on BJP workers, the morale of the party workers is at the lowest level. These results have made it clear that it is going to take years for a strong opposition to stand against the TMC in Bengal.
The JD(U) won both the seats in the by-polls in Bihar. Though there was no surprise element in it, at least one of these victories was required for the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) to revive its cadre.
The biggest news of the Bihar by-election is that Chirag Paswan’s party will get the third place in both the seats, which on one hand is indicating that the real successor of Ram Vilas Paswan is going to be his son, not his brother and on the other hand. These results have read Congress’s death in Bihar.
The good news of the biggest victory for the BJP came from Assam where the party along with its ally won all the five seats. Chief Minister Hemant Biswa Sarma tweeted that these five seats were won by a bigger margin than in the general elections. In a way, it is the stamp of the voters of Assam on Sarma’s nationalist policies and campaign against Bangladeshi Muslim infiltrators.
In comparison, if we look at the policies of the BJP government in Himachal, it has been seen consistently neglecting the sentiments of the Hindu voters. The government control of Hindu pilgrimages and the government’s policy of capturing the donations of Char Dham pilgrimages has angered the Hindu voters of the state, this is not hidden from anyone.
After Assam, Telangana also gave a great gift to the BJP where party candidate Itala Rajender snatched the Huzurabad seat from the ruling TRS. The Huzurabad seat has been a TRS bastion since 2004 and the state’s former health minister Rajender has represented this seat for four consecutive terms from 2009 to 2021. In such a situation, during the upcoming assembly elections, Rajender can prove to be a trump card for the BJP and the party can prepare its strategy on the lines of Hemant Biswa Sarma and Suvendu Adhikari of Bengal.
And finally the seat of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, which was won by Shiv Sena. This is Shiv Sena’s first victory in a Lok Sabha seat outside Maharashtra and the party is so excited about the victory that its bigoted spokesperson Sanjay Raut called it the first step to reach Delhi or form the government at the Centre. But these results need a closer look.
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Election to Dadar and Nagar Haveli Lok Sabha seat was held due to the alleged suicide of its MP Mohan Delkar. Mohan Delkar had earlier been in both BJP and Congress, but he won the 2019 election as an independent. Winning an independent Lok Sabha seat is a wonderful feat and it shows how popular a politician is in that area.
It is clear that the votes that Mohan Delkar got in 2019 came to him personally and not because of any party. In such a situation, when his wife joined Shiv Sena, the votes of Mohan Delkar would have shifted to his wife, which has no special meaning with Shiv Sena. Therefore, Shiv Sena’s benefit from this victory is understandable, but if Shiv Sena is seeing it as a wave running for Uddhav Thackeray in the country, then it can only be called a ridiculous rhetoric.
In a way, it is clear that the elections of October 30 have given a very valuable message for every state to the powerful parties there, but a central message which is coming out of all the states is that now the people are only Narendra Modi. Not ready to vote for BJP. If the leaders and the party at the local level do not live up to the expectations of their voters, then they will have to be prepared for electoral defeat, be it in the Lok Sabha elections or the Vidhan Sabha.
(The author is an expert in agriculture and political affairs)
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