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A day before the results of by-elections in 33 assembly seats was to be declared, in a casual chat with Business Standard, a top Bharatiya Janata Party leader said he hoped the Congress would win at least one of the three Assam assembly constituencies where bypolls had been ordered. “If the Congress loses all, the chances are that a demand would be voiced for (Chief Minister) Tarun Gogoi’s replacement. That will be really bad for us. It is in BJP’s interest to ensure Gogoi continues: if he is replaced by Himanta Biswa Sarma, it will be bad for the BJP” he said. He also predicted that at least one seat would be won by the All India United Democratic Front or AIUDF, headed by Badruddin Ajmal.
The latest trends indicate that in at least two assembly constituencies: Silchar, Lakhipur and Jamunamukh – it is the AIUDF which is winning. Silchar Congress MLA Sushmita Dev and Jamunamukh AIUDF MLA Mohammad Sirajuddin Ajmal were elected to the Lok Sabha in May.This means the Congress is one seat down in a state where it has a government.
The death of sitting Congress MLA Dinesh Prasad Goala necessitated the by-poll in Lakhipur. Here the congress is leading.
Equally interesting is outcome of the bypolls in Uttar Pradesh where the principal face to be deployed was Mahant Adityanath. The Samajwadi Party (SP) is likey to win 9 of the 11 seats that have gone to polls. Tej Pratap Singh, grand nephew of SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, is set to trounce the BJP by over 100,000 votes in Mainpuri: suggesting that BJP President Amit Shah’s remark – that only members of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s family had won the Lok Sabha elections where the BJP won 71 out of 80 Lok Sabha seats – was not taken kindly.The BJP is likely to win only two seats in the state. Even an urban constituency like NOIDA (formally known as GautamBudh Nagar) saw only 33 per cent turnout and has favoured the SP.
The balance of advantage in the bypolls rests with the Congress. It has won three of the four assembly seats in Rajasthan with the ruling BJP winning just one seat.
Weir, Surajgarh and Nasirabad assembly constituencies were all won by Congress while the BJP's Sandeep Sharma was elected from the Kota South constituency.This is hardly suprising, given that Kota is by and large a urban constituency which was under Narendra Modi’s spell after the Lok sabha election. But Sharma defeated his nearest rival, Shivkant Nandwana of the Congress by just 25,000 votes.The ruling party's candidate from Surajgarh, Digambar Singh, a close confidant of Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, lost by a margin of over 3,000 votes to Shravan Kumar of the Congress. All this means Sachin Pilot’s stock in the Congress will go up.
What is the bottom line? Depressing. The results suggest that the theme of governance has taken a back seat: the resounding victory of the SP in UP indicates there is a clear communal divide. In Rajasthan, local factors dictated the BJP’s defeat, although with the massive mandate Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje got just months ago renders the result of this election irrelevant.
"We welcome public mandate and accept our defeat on three seats of Weir, Surajgarh, and Nasirabad with great humility", said Rajasthan BJP President Ashok Parnami.
"Hum poora vishleshan karenge natizon ka...kya kamiyan rahin dekhenge, tab jimmedari fix kareinge (We will do complete review and introspect results...what were the weaknesses and faults, we will look into it...also fix responsibility on those engaged in electioneering", he said.
What was truly surprising was the result in Gujarat. The ruling BJP could retain only six of the nine seats while Congress bagged two and was ahead in one. It was the BJP which had held all nine earlier. This, when Narendra Modi had sought a birthday gift from the people of Gujarat, asking them to give them victory in all nine assembly seats and one Lok Sabha seat: the BJP has won the one Lok sabha seat (Vadodara, vacated by Modi) but is down in three assembly seats.
The only plus for the BJP was its victory in one West Bengal Assemly seat (Basirhat). The CPIM predictably won one seat in Tripura.
