Oppn unity...

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 western UP town which has witnessed communal polarisation since 2013. The BJP had comfortably won the seat in the 2014 elections.

The opposition interpreted the 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.

“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,” Hasan said.

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 the portrait of Pakistan’s founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah at the Aligarh Muslim University.

The BJP argued that bypolls are fought primarily on local issues. In recent interactions with journalists, 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 worries. “More than Jat-muslim unity, shift of the non-jatav Dalit voters away from us is a cause of worry. They voted for us in the last two elections,” a BJP MP from Uttar Pradesh.

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 Meghalaya, defeating BJP’S ally National People’s Party, and thus became the single largest party in the state assembly; 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 a political commentator. He added: “The results also indicate that PM Narendra Modi’s personal electoral hold is ebbing.”

The impact of the bypolls is more symbolic than substantive, said Milan Vaishnav, a political scientist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Historically, bypolls have been driven more by local factors than larger state or national trends. Symbolically, however, these bypolls provide a shot in the arm to the opposition. They are a confidence booster at a time when state by state, anti-bjp fronts are quickly emerging,” Vaishnav said.

The results, he added, will boost the morale of the cadre of the opposition parties, help them in fundraising,and feed an antiincumbency narrative .

There was an increase in RLD votes, but contrary to pre-poll reports, for the large part, Jats stayed with the BJP. The 2017 result was a replica of the 2014 outcome.

The RLD was now facing a real crisis to stay relevant. It was out of power at both the centre and the state. It had lost in both Lok Sabha and assembly elections. The father-son duo had lost its house in central Delhi — always a barometer of power and prestige in political circles. Their social base of Jats seemed to have moved away to the BJP. The party’s other constituency, Muslims, saw the RLD as a Jat party and preferred to stick to the Samajwadi Party (SP) or, in some cases, even go to the Bhaujan Samaj Party (BSP).

And that is why stepping into the Kairana bypolls of 2018, the stakes could not have been higher for the party. riots. It was time to change its image. Jats seem to have returned to the party in substantial numbers.

Hasan, meanwhile, campaigned in Muslim areas,where not much convincing was required that the RLD was best positioned to defeat the BJP. To add to this was a section of the Dalit vote, which appears to have come because of Mayawati. The BJP was left with a narrower social coalition: Gujjars (the candidate’s caste); upper castes; and a section of the non-jat OBCS.

What it means

The Kairana outcome offers significant takeaways.

For one, west UP is approaching a post Muzaffarnagar phase in politics in which Muslims and Jats are willing to vote for the same candidate. But it is important to remember that this does not necessarily mean that social harmony is back; that the trust deficit and political polarisation is over. The fact that the RLD did not actively advertise its Muslim candidate in Jat areas and the candidate did not actively advertise the party in Muslim areas is telling; as is the fact that Akhilesh Yadav did not come out to campaign calculating that this could aid communal polarisation (he was CM when riots happened, and Jats view the SP with suspicion).

Clearly, there persists a major gap between communities.

Two, pure arithmetic works. A fragmented opposition helped BJP. A united opposition has created a severe political challenge, by stitching together unlikely social coalitions and consolidating votes.

PM Narendra Modi spoke in Baghpat, a day before the polls, and indirectly addressed issues related to the Kairana electorate, but the power of local arithmetic overwhelmed it. When voters press the button in general elections, however, their motivations may be different. Amit Shah is well aware of this challenge and has spoken of the need to get 50% of the vote share in UP, but this will probably be his biggest challenge in 2019.

And finally, the Kairana election has highlighted the return of the RLD and given it some political space.

The party will remain limited to its west UP pockets. It will be a marginal player in the border alliance in Uttar Pradesh, but from almost becoming irrelevant, it has shown that it retains the support of an important social group.

This election also signals a generational shift in the party with Jayant Chaudhary now firmly in command.

UP’S 80 seats are up for grabs in 2019. The Kairana election has truly opened up in India’s most politically influential state.