Advantage Congress or BJP? Making sense of MP, Odisha by-election results

In Madhya Pradesh, the Congress just about managed to retain the Mungaoli assembly seat. It won the Kolaras seat a bit more comfortably

On the face of it, results to the three assembly by-elections, two in Madhya Pradesh and one in Odisha, announced on Wednesday, weren’t good news for the Congress.

But a closer look suggests the results were also a jolt to the preparations of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the Madhya Pradesh assembly polls, scheduled for late November, and Odisha assembly polls, which are slated to take place simultaneously with the Lok Sabha elections in April-May, 2019.

The results of the Madhya Pradesh by-elections also underlined the importance of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which had polled substantial votes in these two