Seeing a larger meaning in the bypoll results in Gujarat, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh does not serve a strong analytical purpose
Seeing a larger meaning in the bypoll results in Gujarat, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh does not serve a strong analytical purpose
It is a commonplace to suggest that the byelection wins in two Lok Sabha and four Assembly seats in Gujarat will give chief minister Narendra Modi a leg-up in his orchestrated bid to be named the BJP’s campaign face for the 2014 general election or its prime ministerial candidate.
The Gujarat byelection victories will be all the more sweet for the BJP as each of the six seats was wrested from the Congress, the Gujarat leader’s bête noir. (The argument of some Congress leaders that two of these were won by Congress defectors is a defensive one, and of little value in the larger context.)
It has to be remembered, however, that the BJP failed to win a single seat in other states where Assembly or Lok Sabha byelections were held, and lost its deposit in the Assembly bypolls in Uttar Pradesh. This should make it obvious that overdrawing the picture, and seeing a larger meaning in the bypoll results in Gujarat, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh does not serve a strong analytical purpose, although Mr Modi has called the Gujarat results alone a “referendum” on Congress rule at the Centre, and a sign of things to come in 2014.
In Bihar, Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal trounced chief minister Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) to retain the Maharajganj Lok Sabha seat by the staggering margin of 1.37 lakh votes. This dents Mr Kumar’s image (particularly at a time when Mr Modi’s stock within the BJP has risen). The real reason for this is that byelections tend to be won, on the whole, by the party ruling a state, but the JD(U) failed to pull it off although Mr Kumar has become a bit of a development icon for many across the country. However, on the basis of this win, although massive, Mr Yadav is claiming that “fascist forces” (meaning RSS-BJP and their allies, like the JD-U) have been defeated and will be routed in 2014 as well. This is as stunning a claim as Mr Modi’s. Which one should we believe?
The answer is neither. In a vast country different parties are picking up seats in different states. In West Bengal, the Trinamul Congress also won the Howrah Assembly seat, beating the CPI(M) by a relatively narrow margin, although chief minister Mamata Banerjee is no longer aligned with the Congress and is thought to be losing her steam. The Congress lost seats in all states but retained the one Assembly seat in Maharashtra, where it rules, defeating the BJP.
