After defeat, BJP now the target of allies, rivals

The by-poll results of four Lok Sabha and 10 assembly seats across 11 states have caused murmurs of discontent in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)led National Democratic Alliance.

The results also had leaders of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) discover redeeming features in the Congress.

The Janata Dal (United), the BJP’s ally in Bihar, which lost the Jokihat assembly seat to the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), fumed at the increasing fuel prices.

Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray threatened that his party would fight all future elections on its own, and accused the BJP of rigging the Palghar Lok Sabha by-poll.

But Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said he would talk to the Sena chief to convince him to keep the BJP-Sena alliance intact for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

The JD(U)’s loss suggested an erosion in Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s support base and increasing acceptance of the RJD under Tejashwi Yadav. The JD(U) defeat could spur desertions of Yadav and Muslim legislators of his party.

Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu said the Congress was a better bet than the BJP at the current juncture. He said the TDP fought the antifederal Congress governments of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, but now the situation was much worse.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, also Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief, tweeted how people were “missing an educated PM like Manmohan Singh”. “It is dawning on people now. The PM, after all, should be educated,” Kejriwal tweeted and attached an article on steep fuel prices.

In Lucknow, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav too acknowledged the support of AAP, along with that of other opposition parties, for the Kairana Lok Sabha and Noorpur assembly wins. Rashtriya Lok Dal’s Jayant Chaudhary also thanked the AAP.

Communist Party of India (Marxist) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury said the bypoll results weren’t just about the unity of secular forces. He said the results also show that the BJP vote share had declined substantially from 2014.

“It is a big setback to the BJPRSS as UP and Bihar gave them absolute majority,” he said.

The BJP clearly has a problem on its hands. Uttar Pradesh and Bihar contributed 105 seats to its tally in 2014. It has now lost eight Lok Sabha by-polls in the last four years, including three successive defeats in UP and two in Rajasthan.