Bypoll results show substantial erosion of BJP votebank: CPI-M

The recent bye-elections have reflected a "substantial erosion" of the vote bank of ruling BJP whose "real agenda" was completely different from the issues on which it had mounted its Lok Sabha poll campaign, the CPI(M) said today.
"Though there is still a long way for an anti-communal combination to come up as a coherent alternative, these results nevertheless are a pointer to the fact that the people have realised, much to the RSS-BJP's discomfort, that the real agenda of the Modi government is completely different from the issues on which the election campaign was mounted," senior party leader Sitaram Yechury said.

Observing that the bypoll results could not be dismissed in "a cynical manner" as done by a section of the media, he said NDA vote share was 45.3 per cent in 10 segments of Bihar in the general elections, which has now come down to 37.3 per cent, "a significant negative swing away from the BJP of eight percentage points".
In contrast, the combined vote share of RJD-JD(U) and Congress increased from 40.3 per cent to 44.9 per cent, a positive swing of 4.6 percentage points, Yechury said in an editorial in CPI(M) organ 'People's Democracy'.
Noting that the BJP had lost one sitting seat each in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka, he said in the earlier bypolls in Uttarakhand, BJP lost all the three seats that went to polls. "Even in Bihar, voting figures show that there has been a substantial erosion in the RSS-BJP alliance's vote share."

During the Lok Sabha polls, the people were led to believe that under Modi, there shall be a resurgent India - 'acche din aanewale hai', Yechury said.

On the contrary, there was a steep hike in prices of petro products and railway fares, there was no visible sign of any economic turnaround providing new jobs and "the people's miseries have only mounted".
"All major election campaign planks were not even mentioned by the Prime Minister in his first ever address to the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort," he said referring to the BJP plank of curbing price rise or combating corruption.

In addition, since this government assumed office, there has been "a sharp escalation" of communal tension and "polarisation was sought to be whipped up for electoral gains", Yechury said.
Simultaneously, the government has pursued "international finance capital-dictated neo-liberal economic reforms that continuously furthers the divide between the two Indias and heaps miseries on the vast mass of our people.
"This is, indeed, a lethal cocktail destined to heap further miseries on the majority of our people," he said.