BJP suffers reverses in by-polls

Retains only seven seats in Gujarat, makes inroads in West Bengal

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), after a resounding performance in the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections earlier, has suffered serious reverses in by-elections held on Saturday, especially in Uttar Pradesh, where it had won 71 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats. In what might suggest new communal polarisation across the country, the results to by-polls on 36 seats (three Lok Sabha and 33 Assembly) show BJP has lost many of the seats it previously held and yielded space to the parties it had vowed to dislodge — the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Badruddin Ajmal’s All-India United Democratic Front (AIUDF).

Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party has won eight of the 11 Uttar Pradesh Assembly seats that went to polls — either because the candidate had died or had resigned to contest the Lok Sabha elections.

BJP’s principal face in the state for the by-polls was Yogi Adityanath, who has been served a notice by the Election Commission for making communally provocative speeches.

SP’s Tej Pratap Singh trounced BJP by more than 100,000 votes in the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat vacated by his granduncle and party chief, Yadav. This seems to suggest that BJP President Amit Shah’s remark — that only members of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s family won the Lok Sabha elections — did little to turn the tide.

Significantly, 10 of the Assembly seats that went to polls in the state were previously held by BJP and were vacated by legislators who became members of the Lok Sabha. The party managed to retain only three of these, including Noida (formally known as Gautam Budh Nagar), which saw only 33 per cent voter turnout. The party lost Rohaniya, on the outskirts of Varanasi, where Modi addressed a mammoth gathering only a few months ago. The seat was vacated by the Apna Dal’s Anupriya Patel, who had joined BJP ahead of Lok Sabha elections.

In Gujarat, the nine Assembly seats and one Lok Sabha seat were seen as a litmus test for the new chief minister, Anandiben Patel. Here, the Congress made inroads into the BJP bastions: While BJP won six of the Assembly seats, it was beaten by the Congress on three — Deesa, Mangrol and Khambaliya — considered BJP strongholds. The party retained the Vadodara Lok Sabha seat, vacated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi after also winning from Varanasi. But BJP candidate Ranjanaben Bhatt’s margin of victory on this seat came down. She defeated her Congress rival Narendra Rawat by around 329,000 votes, compared with Modi’s victory by 570,000 votes.

The Rajasthan by-poll result was clearly in the Congress’ favour, indicating anti-incumbency had set in early. Of the four seats, the Congress won three — Weir, Surajgarh and Nasirabad — and the ruling BJP bagged Kota. This was no surprise, given that Kota, an urban constituency, was under Modi’s spell since the Lok Sabha polls.

BJP, however, made a handsome gain in West Bengal, where it won its first seat since starting to contest Assembly elections 15 years ago. It bagged the Basirhat Dakshin seat, defeating the Trinamool Congress. The net loser in the state was the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which came third. The Trinamool Congress also won the Chowringhee seat. BJP also got a major shot in the arm in Assam, where it won the Silchar Assembly constituency. The CPI(M) managed to win a seat in Tripura.

In Andhra Pradesh, where BJP had posted gains earlier, did not do very well this time. The lone Assembly seat that went to polls was won by the Telugu Desam Party, while the Medak Lok Sabha seat in Telangana was retained by the Telangana Rashtra Samithi.