NEW DELHI: Going strictly by the numbers, it was a tie. Of the 32 seats up for grabs in the by-elections, 29 Assembly and three Lok Sabha seats, the results of which were declared on Tuesday, the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies won 16 and the remaining were bagged by the opposition parties led by the Congress and the Trinamool Congress.
But the bragging rights can be said to have been won by the opposition for at least three reasons. One, in BJP-ruled Himachal Pradesh, which will see Assembly polls next year, the Congress bucked the trend of ruling parties enjoying an advantage in bypolls, bagging all the four seats.
Second, the Trinamool’s steam roller victory in West Bengal over the BJP, which lost its deposit in three of the four seats, further denuded the saffron party. Third, was the BJP’s setback in Rajasthan, where its candidates slipped to third and fourth positions in the two seats where by-elections were held.
The Dadar and Nagar Haveli Lok Sabha by-elections perhaps provided the icing on the cake for the opposition, where for the first time the Shiv Sena won a parliamentary seat outside its stomping ground of Maharashtra.
In Karnataka, the Congress snatched the Hangal Assembly seat from the BJP by a convincing margin, delivering a body blow to new Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai who had extensively campaigned there. Bommai’s Shiggaon seat is adjacent Hangal.
Telangana’s Eatala Rajender retained his Huzurabad seat defeating the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) by a wide margin. He was earlier elected from the same seat on a TRS ticket and became a minister but resigned and joined the BJP following differences with Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao. There were no surprises in Andhra Pradesh as the ruling YSRCP retained the Badvel-SC seat.
The saving grace for the BJP and its allies came from Madhya Pradesh and the northeastern states. While in MP it won two of the three Assembly seats and the lone Lok Sabha constituency, the NDA bagged all nine Assembly seats in Assam, Meghalaya and Mizoram.
Himachal Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur owned responsibility for the BJP’s defeat in the three Assembly constituencies and one Lok Sabha seat. “The party will introspect, will formulate a strategy to overcome its shortcomings and do everything possible to ensure victory in next year’s elections,” he said. In Haryana, Abhay Singh Chautala of the Indian National Lok Dal described his victory from Ellenabad as a win for the agitating farmers.
Mamata dedicates poll win to people of Bengal
In Bengal, the ruling Trinamool snatched the Dinhata and Shantipur constituencies from the BJP while retaining Gosaba and Khardah. But the highlight of the wins was the sheer scale of the victory as the Trinamool bagged around 75% of the popular votes.
“This victory is people’s victory as it shows how Bengal will always choose development and unity over propaganda and hate politics,” Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee tweeted. The Congress victories in Rajasthan’s Vallabhnagar and Dhariyavad is set to strengthen CM Ashok Gehlot’s hands against his rival, Sachin Pilot.
In contrast, the BJP’s defeat is likely to intensify the rift in the state unit with former chief minister Vasundhara Raje the gainer against her detractors. Madhya Pradesh lifted the gloom in the BJP with the party not only wresting two Congress bastions, Jobat-ST and Prithvipur, but also retaining the Khandwa Lok Sabha seat, albeit with a much narrower margin than the 2019 LS polls.
Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan dubbed the win as a perfect Dhanteras and Diwali gift. His predecessor and PCC chief Kamal Nath accused BJP of misusing official machinery and money and muscle power.
