NEW DELHI: After the high voltage 2014 general elections, the country is set to witness another round of interesting electoral battle. It includes by-elections to three key Lok Sabha constituencies—Vadodara, Mainpuri and Medak—vacated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and Telangana Rashtra Samithi boss Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao respectively.
The Election Commission on Saturday announced the by-elections to 33 Assembly seats in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, and to the three aforementioned high-profile Lok Sabha seats.
The biggest chunk of seats—11—fall in UP, Gujarat has nine, Rajasthan four and Assam three. In the rest of the states, there are one or two seats that will see bye-polls. Bulk of these seats have been vacated by BJP MLAs who have elected to Lok Sabha.
With BSP deciding to stay away from the by-elections in Uttar Pradesh, it would virtually be a contest between the BJP and the Samajwadi Party in a bit of a communally charged up atmosphere. That SP supremo MSY is likely to field his grand-nephew, Tej Pratap Singh, from Mainpuri.BJP will try to snatch this extra seat in the by-polls. Seven out of 11 seats are in western UP which has increasingly becoming a BJP stronghold.
The BSP’s decision to stay away from this round of by-polls will additionally help the BJP to retain the Dalit votes, which had overwhelmingly tilted towards it during the Lok Sabha polls. Plus Congress, with no sign of revival and defunct party structure, may just routinely follow the motion of fielding candidates without posing any threat any of the two main players.
In Telangana too it’s no different. The contest in Medak is likely to be between TSR and BJP. By indications, TRS is likely to field Devi Prasad, president of Telangana NGOs; while BJP is considering putting up G Krishen Reddy, a sitting MLA. TDP will not be jumping into the fray, instead it had decided to back ally BJP’s candidate.
Since the Congress is still counting on the reasons for its defeat in general elections, it’s in no position to put up any challenge worth mentioning. The situation for the grand old party is no different in Gujarat and Rajasthan, which too is likely to tilt towards BJP.
As for Vadodara, the constiutency Prime Minister Narendra Modi vacated, sources in the BJP said, any party loyalists can be fielded and “will win”. In the last round, Modi defeated Congress candidate Madhusudan Mistry by a margin of 5.70 lakh votes. Whether the newly anointed BJP chief Amit Shah contests the seat to enter Parliament also needs to be seen. Purushottam Rupala, former Gujarat minister and party spokesperson’s name is also making rounds.
The nine Assembly seats in Gujarat were held by BJP. The same is true about Rajasthan, all four are the result of BJP MLAs getting elected to LS. Needless to say, it's prestige fight for Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and she’ll not leave any stone unturned to keep the seats in the BJP fold.