Oppn unity trumps BJP again

TABASSUM TRIUMPHS RLD candidate wins Kairana, SP’s Naeem ul Hasan bags Noorpur; NDA wins 2 LS and only 1 assembly seats in bypolls

NEW DELHI: The results of the last round of by-elections for the Lok Sabha before the 2019 general elections, a set of nine assembly by-elections across the country, and an election for one assembly seat in Karnataka delivered a major political setback to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), raised questions about the sustainability of its electoral dominance, and generated much cheer in the opposition ranks on Thursday.

The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance won two of the four Lok Sabha bypolls (Palghar in Maharashtra and the sole seat in Nagaland) and only one of the ten assembly seats (Tharali in Uttarakhand). The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), in alliance with the Congress won the Bhandara-Gondia parliamentary seat.

But in what is being seen as the most politically significant outcome, and a boost to prospects of opposition unity, the Rashtriya Lok Dal, a small regional Jat-dominated party centred in Western UP, led by the father-son duo of Ajit Singh and Jayant Chaudhary , won the Kairana Lok Sabha seat. The RLD was backed by the Samajwadi Party (SP), and the party candidate, now Kairana MP, Tabassum Hasan, was an SP leader till she filed her nomination.

› It’s the beginning of the end of an arrogant rule and defeat of divisive politics. I congratulate the voters in both the seats as they have given a befitting response to the BJP’s rule that was nothing but lies and betrayal. AKHILESH YADAV, SP chief

RLD’s Tabassum Hasan defeated BJP’s Mriganka Singh by a margin of 44,618 votes to win the Kairana Lok Sabha seat, while Naeem ul Hasan of the Samajwadi Party (SP) bagged the Noorpur seat defeating Avani Singh of BJP by 5,678 votes.

The BSP and the Congress too supported Hasan, in what became a successful joint opposition political bid against the BJP’s Mriganka Singh.

The Kairana victory comes two months after the BJP lost the Gorakhpur and Phulpur bypolls to the SP, which was backed by BSP. Kairana is a west UP town which has witnessed communal polarisation since 2013.

The BJP had comfortably won the seat in the 2014 elections.

The opposition interpreted ithe verdict as a defeat of the BJP’s ‘communalism’ and the revival of the Jat-Muslim political coalition which had broken down after the riots.

Hasan said, “They (BJP) have been exposed and people understand their design. They divide people on religious and communal lines and also tried to vitiate atmosphere here. They raised the issue of Jinnah which had nothing to do with Kairana.” Chaudhary, the RLD leader, said ganna (sugarcane arrears have been a major issue in the region) prevailed over Jinnah, in a reference to the political controversy over his portrait at the Aligarh Muslim University.

The BJP has however argued that bypolls are fought primarily on local issues.

In recent press interactions, party chief Amit Shah had said, “When voters know that their decision will impact state and national government formation, they vote differently. Bypolls are fought on local issues.”

But while officially, the party said the results would have national impact, BJP leaders privately expressed their worries. A BJP MP from Uttar Pradesh said, “More than a Jat-Muslim unity, shift of the nonJatav Dalit voters away from us is a cause of worry. They voted for us in the last two elections.” Dalits account for 21.2% and Muslims 19.2% of Uttar Pradesh’s population. “The arithmetic was against us,” the MP added, asking not to be identified. Another UP-based BJP leader said that PM Narendra Modi had addressed what was almost a ‘campaign rally’ in Baghpat a day before Kairana but still could not swing the verdict. “We can’t live in denial. The opposition coming together is a major challenge. Amit Shah has said we have to win 50 % vote share to beat them but that is not easy.”

In Kairana, the BJP won 46.5% of the votes.

A third BJP functionary however emphasised that BJP had retained a respectable vote share. “Here, people elected an MP. In 2019, they will elect a PM. When the contest is between Modi and there is no one else from the other side, people will swing back. Wait and watch.”

Maharashtra proved to be a mixed bag for the BJP. While it was able to defeat the Shiv Sena in Palghar, in a tough contest, thus showing that under Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, the BJP has emerged as the clearly dominant player in the old BJP-SS equation, it lost to the NCP (supported by the Congress) in Bhandara-Gondia.

But what emerged as an equal blow to the BJP were the assembly results.

It lost both seats in Jharkhand; the SP won the Noorpur assembly seat in UP; the Congress won a seat in Meghlaya, defeating BJP’s ally National People’s Party, and thus became the single largest party in the state; the Rashtriya Janata Dal defeated BJP’s ally, the Janata Dal (United) in Bihar’s Jokihat; the Congress displaced BJP’s ally, the Akali Dal, from Punjab’s Shahkot assembly constituency. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Trinamool Congress retained their electoral dominance in Kerala and West Bengal, winning a seat each. The Congress also comfortably won the RR Nagar seat in Karnataka.

‘The by-election outcome reminds us of what is possible if there is opposition coordination. The Uttar Pradesh loss is particularly significant since the BJP has lost a string of by-elections after Yogi Adityanath’s appointment as Chief Minister,” said Pratap Bhanu Mehta, vice chancellor of the Ashoka University and an eminent political commentator. He added: “The results also indicate that PM Narendra Modi’s personal electoral hold is ebbing.”

THE BIGGEST BOOST TO THE OPPN CAME FROM KAIRANA WHERE CONG, BSP AND SP THREW THEIR WEIGHT BEHIND THE RLD CANDIDATE