Just months after its biggest ever victory in the Lok Sabha polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday faced a big jolt when the results of bypolls in 32 Assembly and 3 Lok Sabha seats was announced.
The BJP's polarisation formula seems to have worked in favour of its opponent Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh. In a big shock to the BJP, of the 11 Assembly seats that went to polls in Uttar Pradesh, BJP won only three. While it was bitter for the BJP, the results were sweet for the Samajwadi Party which won 8 of the 11 seats. The BJP had won all seats in the last Assembly elections.
As the results were announced, BJP's star campaigner in the state Yogi Adityanath took a defensive stand and claimed that he was not allowed to campaign on all the seats that went to polls in the state. He even went ahead and blamed the Election Commission for being unfair in the treatment that was meted out to him.
While the BJP thought of enticing the voters through polarisation, the SP did not allow its senior party Azam Khan to campaign and divide the voters on communal lines.
Meanwhile, the Congress did not miss taking jibes at the BJP saying that within 100 days of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's rule, people have started voting for a 'Modi-free India". "Campaign creativity is evident by the fact that despite many existing issues in UP, precedence was given to fictional ones like love jihad," Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi said.
Party leader Rashid Alvi also mocked the BJP saying that the reverses for the party was a "victory" of secularism in the country as people from Gujarat to Uttar Pradesh have voted against communalism.
"It is befitting reply from the voters. They have shown people like Adityanath and Sakshi Maharaj the door," SP leader Gaurav Bhatia said.
"It is very easy to be communal but very difficult to be secular," Bhatia said as he quoted UP CM Akhilesh Yadav's ideology.
As questions were being raised about the central leadership, the BJP said that the results are not a referendum on the Central government. "These results are not a referendum on the Central government. They were fought totally on local level issues. The results have given us an opportunity to correct local level shortcomings and will definitely help us win the coming state assembly elections," BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said.
In what could be a warning sign for the BJP, the Congress has regained some ground in Gujarat winning 3 of 9 seats. The BJP though has successfully won the remaining 6 seats. The BJP had won all 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat in May. It has retained the Vadodara Lok Sabha seat vacated by Prime Minister Modi.
In Rajasthan, the BJP has suffered a humiliating defeat. It has managed to win just one seat, out of the total four seats. The Congress has surprised everybody by winning 3 seats. An elated state Congress chief Sachin Pilot has described it as a victory of the workers of the Congress. He has also dubbed it as a vote against both the chief minister Vasundhara Raje and the Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Some good news for the BJP has come from West Bengal. It has won Basirath Dakshin seat and came second in the second seat Chowrangee. For the first time, the BJP has won a seat on its own in West Bengal. In Assam, the AUDF, Congress and BJP won one seat each.
In Andhra Pradesh, the ruling TDP won the lone Nandigama assembly seat. In Telangana, the ruling TRS won Medak Lok Sabha seat by a huge margin. The Congress came second and the BJP came third.
Independent candidate Rup Narayan Chamling won from Rangang-Yangang assembly constituency in Sikkim. "He (Chamling) won the bypoll by a margin of 706 votes," said an election officer of Sikkim. The bypoll was necessitated after Chief Minister Pawan Chamling resigned from the seat and retained Namchi-Singhithang after the April assembly elections.
Rup Narayan Chamling defeated Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF) candidate Kumari Manger, Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Bikash Basnet, and the Congress's Bishnu Prasad Adhikari.
The Sikkim Krantikari Morcha opted out of the fray this time. RN Chamling is the brother of Chief Minister Pawan Chamling. Counting for the lone assembly seat in Chhattisgarh that went to polls will be on September 20.
At a time when Modi led BJP is trying to make its imprint with new policies and decisions at the Centre, it seems that it also needs to ponder over what went wrong on a local level and act immediately before it is too late.
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