By-poll results show BJP on the back foot

Results of the by-polls to the Lok Sabha or assemblies are not usually pointers to the political mood at the national or state levels, but they assume significance when they take place in specific circumstances, and a number of them point in a specific direction. A month after the Lok Sabha elections in which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lost many seats, the I.N.D.I.A. bloc has upstaged it again by winning 10 out of 13 seats in by-polls across seven states. The geographical spread of the contests shows that the results are not caused by local factors or moods. The Congress won four seats — two each in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh — and the Trinamool Congress took all four in West Bengal. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won the Jalandhar West seat in Punjab, and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) bagged the Vikravandi constituency in Tamil Nadu. The BJP got one seat each in Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, and an independent candidate won a seat in Bihar.

The victories in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh will boost the morale of the Congress as the party had suffered a rout in the two states in the Lok Sabha elections. The Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu government in Himachal Pradesh, pushed to the brink after six Congress MLAs and three independents defected, is now on safe ground, regaining its original support of 40 MLAs in the 68-member house. The Congress also won the two seats in the BJP-ruled Uttarakhand, including Badrinath, a place of religious significance. But the party lost its seat to the BJP in Madhya Pradesh. In West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress won all four seats, wresting three from the BJP, clearly asserting its dominance in the state. The AAP won in Punjab by defeating its sitting MLA who defected to the BJP. In Bihar, the NDA suffered an upset when the JD(U) lost a seat to an independent.

Running through all the results is the message that the political mood seen working against the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections is also seen at the state level, even in states where the party had earlier won. Even if a clear political shift is contested, on the basis of local factors and other explanations, there is no doubt that 10 victories in 13 contests will give a major perception advantage and psychological boost to the I.N.D.I.A. bloc. However, it should be noted that every seat was won by an I.N.D.I.A. party in a direct contest against the BJP. The contests did not test the NDA’s ability for vote transfer among constituents. Defectors were punished in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Punjab, and therein may lie a welcome lesson from the voters.