The BJP’s won its bypolls. So demonetisation was not a deciding factor?
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetisation has turned the economy upside down but the BJP’s victory in three of the six states that held by-elections this week is being touted by the BJP as a vote in favour of demonetisation.
On one side we find Mamata Banerjee vehemently opposing the demonetisation move and on the other end the West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh cites the increase in vote share to claim that “people have showed their support towards the decision of demonetisation.”
The outline of the story suggests that people are with Mamata Banerjee in whatever she’s doing since her party won the Coochbehar and Tamluk Lok Sabha seats by a brute margin of nearly five lakh votes and the Monteswar Assembly seat by a whopping 1.27 lakh votes. However, Dilip may not be completely wrong in his assessment either, as BJP saw a significant increase in vote share in Coochbehar LS seat from 16.4 to 28.5 per cent and in Tamluk LS seat from 6.4 to 15.25 per cent.
Bypolls usually tend to go the ruling party way. Among the 120 bypolls held since 2014, 84 of them were won by the ruling party. In 2016, the ruling parties were victorious in 20 of them and only 7 of them were won by the opposition side. Tamil Nadu bypolls stand as a case in point, as the ruling party AIADMK has swept the bypolls continuously since 2011.
So can we unequivocally say that the bypoll victories were an authentication of decision to withdraw the Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes?
If anything, if we look harder at the poll returns from the six states, the polling percentages were in fact much below those of earlier polls. Many may have had no choice but to queue up before banks rather than polling stations.
ASSAM
The six-month-old BJP government in Assam took both the Lakhimpur and Baithalangso bypolls. However, the polling percentage plummeted to 74.43 per cent in Baithalangso constituency from 84.72 per cent recorded in the Assembly election in April. Polling for the Lakhimpur Lok Sabha seat witnessed only 66.81 per cent turnout, whereas back in 2014, the constituency that voted for Sarbananda Sonowal (who later stood for the Assembly elections two years hence and became chief minister) registered a voter turnout of 77.75 per cent.
*The numbers shown in the graphic are votes
ARUNACHAL PRADESH
The numbers from bypolls held in in Arunachal do indicate that demonetisation wasn’t the main concern for the public, as the region has been in the throes of a political crisis all year long. In a span of eight months, the state has seen three chief ministers -- Nabam Tuki, Kalikho Pul and Pema Khandu. Thus, it is not surprising that the people came out in large numbers to vote; the polling percentage was 88.96 per cent for the Hayuliang constituency where the BJP fielded Kalikho Pul’s wife Dasanglu Pul. Kalikho Pul, the five-time winner of the Hayuliang seat committed suicide on August 9.
*The numbers shown in the graphic are votes
MADHYA PRADESH
BJP’s Gyan Singh defeated the Congress candidate Himadri Singh by a margin of 60,000 for the Shahdol Lok Sabha seat. The party also retained the Napanagar Assembly seat by a big margin of 42,198 votes. Madhya Pradesh saw a 5 per cent increase in voter turnout compared to the previous bypoll. But here’s an interesting fact: BJP’s Dalpat Singh Paraste who passed away in June 2016 won the Shahdol seat by 2.5 lakh votes in 2014. So did the margin fall so drastically because the public is in fact disgruntled over demonetisation?
*The numbers shown in the graphic are votes