BJP's bypoll blues continue
By-elections continue to be the proverbial Achilles' heel for India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. This has been the trend ever since it returned to power in May 2014. In fact, one estimate says that the party has won just six of the 30 by-elections held in the last four and half years. During the same year, the saffron party has, however, emerged victorious in so many state polls including the remarkable win in the key political battleground of Uttar Pradesh. But the BJP has somehow been buffeted by bypoll blues. The latest manifestation of that trend was in the bypolls to three parliamentary and two assembly seats in the southern state of Karnataka on November 6 when the BJP could win just one seat and lost the rest to Congress Party and its state ally Janata Dal (Secular).
While an understandably buoyant Congress projected the Karnataka bypolls mandate as a "teaser" for what awaits the BJP in 2019, the saffron outfit's official response was that not too much should be read into by-election results. However, the signal from the Karnataka bypolls for the 2019 parliamentary elections was a theme of Janata Dal (S) Chief and former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda's campaign speeches.
True, bypoll verdicts are not always a reliable indicator of voters' mood in the run up to the national polls; the recent results in Karnataka are different from any other such exercise in the past for three main reasons: (1) the timing as it came so close to the coming assembly elections in the five states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Mizoram and Telangana in November-December and; (2) the hefty margin of victory for Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) indicating the possibility of transfer of votes from one party to the other and; (3) it sends a strong positive political message about the unity among opposition parties in the run up to the parliamentary elections in the first half of 2019 and a worrying signal for the BJP which has so far been mocking at tentative and half-hearted moves for a pan-India united opposition front to take on the BJP.
That the Karnataka bypoll defeat for the BJP came even after its good show in Uttar Pradesh (where the party assumed power in 2017 on the back of a stunning show) and in Karnataka state polls (in Karnataka, the BJP emerged as the single largest party in assembly elections in May this year only to be outsmarted by the joining of hands by Congress and Janata Dal (S) and forming the state government) is all the more reason why the party cannot afford to dismiss the latest bypoll mandates out of hand. Rather, they should serve as a wake-up call to introspect. What should cause greater worry to the BJP is the big margin of the Congress-Janata Dal (S) wins.
The Karnataka bypolls have silenced the critics of the Congress-Janata Dal (S) tie-up, particularly its longevity given the smouldering differences between the two parties. If anything, the results would only serve to cement the alliance between the two parties and enthuse them to work with more vigour to take on the BJP in the elections to the 28 parliamentary seats which will be up for grab in the state. Such is the glue of power. So, the BJP has a challenge on its hand if it has to at least defend the tally of 17 of the 28 parliamentary seats it had won in Karnataka in 2014.
The Karnataka bypolls have driven home the point that if opposition parties can get their acts together and put up a united front, they stand to gain against the BJP in 2019. The Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) worked out a seat-sharing arrangement for the five seats in the bypoll and put up jointly-agreed candidates against the BJP's challengers. The results show the Congress and the Janata Dal (S) benefitted from each other. The question now is: can this be replicated among other opposition parties in other states?
One saw in March this year how an alliance between Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party helped defeat the BJP in three bypolls in Gorakhpur, Phulpur and Kairana in Uttar Pradesh and how the Congress came out triumphant in Ajmer and Alwar by-elections in Rajasthan also earlier this year. The bypolls in the three constituencies in Uttar Pradesh as well as in the five saw transfer of votes in varying numbers among the parties opposed to the BJP. In Rajasthan bypolls, the fight was mainly between the Congress and the BJP. However, unity among the opposition is missing when it comes to facing the ruling BJP in the coming assembly polls in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh as Mayawati-led BSP is fighting separately in these states following differences with Congress over seat-sharing.
Congress is already in talks with Telugu Desam Party (TDP) for an alliance that is ruling Andhra Pradesh, for assembly polls in adjacent Telangana where political observers believe the Karnataka bypoll could have some ripple effects because the two states share borders. The TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu is currently on a pan-India tour trying to cobble together a broad alliance of non-BJP and non-NDA regional parties for the 2019 national elections.
Much will depend on what shape the opposition alliance takes. The opposition parties could help each other in their respective states of influence and its value lies when all the states are taken in totality and aggregated.
Pallab Bhattacharya is a special correspondent at The Daily Star.
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