JOIN USThe setbacks received by the BJP in byelections in a number of states hold important lessons for the party and its government. They are more in the nature of a drubbing in view of the scale and spread of the defeat. It was hardly expected that the high political tide in favour of the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections would ebb so soon in states where it had swept away all opposition. In UP where it had won 71 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats, the party managed to win only three of the 11 Assembly seats, losing in even a constituency which is part of the prime minister Varanasi seat. The performance was bad even in comparison to the 2012 Assembly elections. The Samajwadi Party which had lost heavily in the Lok Sabha polls made a strong comeback.
The BJP’s losses in Rajasthan and Gujarat are equally glaring. It lost three of the four seats in Rajasthan and the Congress has taken all three. Even in Gujarat the BJP ceded three of the nine seats to the Congress. The gains in Assam and West Bengal are poor consolation in view of this. Political moods are notoriously fickle but the drastic reversal of fortunes in such a short period is not without reasons. The BJP may even have misread the reasons for its victory three months ago or has become more ambitious and disruptive in its electoral plans, especially in UP. The free rein given to the communal rantings of the likes of Yogi Adityanath and Sakshi Maharaj, which only made people aware of the dangerous social polarisation they would cause, did certainly work against the party. It may even have given the impression that the development agenda on which the party rode last time was only a pretext. At the ground level the staying away of Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party from the elections may also have gone against the BJP, because many BSP votes possibly went to the Samajwadi Party.
The BJP’s losses become starker when the results are read in continuation of the outcome of another set of byelections held in some other states last month, in which also it did not do well. Voters are good judges and they can deliver swift punishment when parties and leaders fail to stray from their promises. The divisive agenda which some of its leaders are promoting can help neither the BJP nor the country. Prime minister Narendra Modi, who has maintained a conspicuous silence on the rantings of some of his colleagues, will hopefully initiate corrective action.