The by-election results declared on Saturday showed that the opposition parties had thwarted the BJP’s hitherto successful strategy of weaning away opposition MLAs, making them resign from the assembly and helping them win bypolls on its ‘lotus’ symbol. The trend reversal could serve as a deterrent against defections, thus rendering the results more significant than the simplistic narrative of ruling parties in states mostly retaining the upper hand in bypolls . The outcome also means the opposition parties will go to the upcoming state elections with enhanced confidence.
Commenting on the Congress victories, party president Mallikarjun Kharge said, “These victories show that the people have now completely rejected the arrogance, misgovernance and negative politics of the BJP. This is also strong evidence of the falling political credibility of Modi and Shah.”
Of the two seats each the Congress has won in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, three seats were those where the party had suffered defection of sitting MLAs to the BJP. While the Congress avenged the defection by retaining the Badrinath seat in Uttarakhand, the party wrested Manglaur from the BSP. Not only did the BJP lose both seats in the party-ruled Uttarakhand, but it also suffered a larger reversal given the party had swept all five Lok Sabha seats in the state.
“The by-election results showed the people rejecting the BJP’s manipulative and horse-trading politics in many statires. The results also show the continuing trend of public opinion turning in favour of the Congress and our INDIA alliance,” said Kumari Selja, All India Congress Committee general secretary in-charge of Uttarakhand.
Of the three bypolls in Himachal Pradesh necessitated by the defection of the three independent MLAs, who were the associated members of the Congress in the assembly, the Congress won two by avenging the defectors fighting on BJP tickets, These included the Dehra seat won by the party for the first time in more than 30 years, through chief minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu’s wife, Kamlesh Thakur. Even as the BJP won the third seat through a slender margin, the Congress, whose state government was on the brink due to recent defections of its MLAs in two batches, has won most of those seats in back-to-back bypolls to cement its majority at 40 in the 68-member assembly.However, the Madhya Pradesh Congress continued with its poor run as it failed to retain the Amarwara seat, where its defector MLA won on the BJP ticket.After dashing the BJP’s hopes in West Bengal hopes in the recent general election, Mamata Banerjee-led All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) retained all three assembly seats – Raiganj, Ranaghat Dakshin and Bagda (along with Kaniktala where sitting party MLA had died) – from where the BJP had engineered defections and resignations of sitting AITC MLAs.
The Aam Aadmi not only won the Jalandhar West seat in Punjab by defeating its defector MLA who fought on the BJP symbol, but also it used a former BJP member to avenge the defection. In Tamil Nadu, the ruling DMK retained the Vikravandi seat by defeating the BJP ally PMK with a massive margin.
