Bypoll results: BJP loses prestige battle in Kairana to united Opposition

The arithmetic of a united Opposition pooling votes trumped the BJP's hopes of repeating the chemistry that the Narendra Modi-led party rode on to win the 2014 LS polls

The results of four Lok Sabha and 10 assembly by-polls, announced on Thursday reinforced the idea of a united Opposition that parties have been working on to fight the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, and sent Bharatiya Janata Party strategists back to the drawing board. The BJP and its allies could win three of the 14 seats.

The trend, apparent in the results of Uttar Pradesh's Phulpur and Gorakphpur Lok Sabha by-polls in March, was reinforced by Thursday's results, particularly in the Kairana Lok Sabha and Noorpur Assembly seats of the state.

The arithmetic of a united Opposition pooling votes trumped the BJP’s hopes of repeating the chemistry that the Narendra Modi-led party rode on to win the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

Uttar Pradesh is crucial for the BJP in 2019. Its successive defeats in by-polls, barely a year after emphatically winning the Assembly polls, is likely to lead to questions being put to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

On the eve of the polling on Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi undertook a well-publicised roadshow on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border and addressed a public rally in Baghpat, where he reached out to the region’s sugarcane farmers. The farmers are upset about not getting a suitable price for their produce. The Opposition had accused the Prime Minister of violating the spirit of the model code of conduct.

On Thursday, an upbeat Opposition insisted that the by-poll results reflected “widespread” anti-incumbency against the Modi government at the Centre, and states run by the BJP and its allies, including Jharkhand, Bihar, Maharashtra and Meghalaya.

Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav, who along with the Congress and Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati, emerged the architect of the Opposition alliance, said people have vented their anger against the BJP's divisive politics, fuel price rise, agrarian distress and joblessness.

BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra attributed the results to local issues and said the combination of Prime Minister Modi and party chief Amit Shah would help the BJP win the 2019 elections.

The results brought the BJP's seats tally down to 272 in the Lok Sabha. The party is now on the brink of losing its majority status in the Lower House. 

The results were a vindication for Yadav and second-generation dynasts who led their respective parties to victories in their home states. In the Kairana Lok Sabha constituency, Rashtriya Lok Dal’s Jayant Chaudhary led from the front to have his party’s Tabassum Hassan elected.

She was supported by the Congress, SP, BSP, Left parties and others. She also became the first Muslim from Uttar Pradesh to enter the current Lok Sabha.

During his campaign, Chaudhary had asked farmers whether they wanted “ganna”, or sugarcane, to be an issue, or would vote on the recent controversy at the Aligarh Muslim University over a photograph of (Muhammad Ali) “Jinnah”. In 2014, the BJP had swept western Uttar Pradesh in the wake of communal riots in Muzaffarnagar, and Chaudhary said his party's win was a sign that Jats and Muslims wanted to forget the past.

With his father in jail, Tejashwi Yadav of Rashtriya Janata Dal-led his party in securing the Jokihat Assembly seat from Janata Dal (United) in Bihar. In Jharkhand, the Hemant Soren-led Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, supported by the Congress and other parties, retained two seats. In West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress increased its winning margin in Maheshtala Assembly, with the party crediting the victory to Lok Sabha MP and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's nephew, Abhishek Banerjee.

Of the four Lok Sabha by-polls that went to polls on Monday, the BJP could only win one. It had won three of these four seats in 2014. The most crucial of the defeats were in the Kairana Lok Sabha seat and the Noorpur assembly in Uttar Pradesh. In Noorpur, BJP candidate lost to united Opposition's Samajwadi Party candidate. The BJP had won Noorpur in 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections.  

The BJP lost the Bhandara-Gondia seat and retained the Palghar Lok Sabha seat, both in Maharashtra. The Nagaland Lok Sabha seat was won by the BJPs new ally, the ruling People's Democratic Alliance. The Bhandara-Gondia seat was won by the Nationalist Congress Party candidate.

In Palghar, BJP's Rajendra Gavit defeated the Shiv Sena candidate. Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray alleged the BJP of electoral malpractices. "When the BJP won the Palghar Lok Sabha seat in 2014, the victory margin was of 100,000 votes. Today, they barely managed to win by a few thousand votes," Thackeray said. The Bahujan Vikas Aghadi candidate came in a respectable third.