Opinion No more advantage BJP?

Only consistent trend in bypolls across states since the general election is the party’s loss of seats

Yogendra Yadav

September 17, 2014 07:16 AM IST First published on: Sep 17, 2014 at 02:46 AM IST

The trouble for the BJP is that the same logic did not work in Rajasthan and Gujarat. Rajasthan Congress President Sachin Pilot celebrates with party workers the party's victory in the bypolls at the party office in Jaipur. (Source: PTI)

The trouble for the BJP is that the same logic did not work in Rajasthan and Gujarat. (Source: PTI)

The bypoll results are clearly bad news for the BJP, though I am not sure if it is good news for the Congress and other opposition parties. The BJP has reasons to worry, especially because these results reinforce the message of earlier bypolls in some other states. But the signals for the Congress and other opposition parties are neither consistent nor strong enough to count as a trend in their favour.

The BJP cannot hide behind the alibi that this was a local election whose results don’t amount to a national trend. It is true that bypolls often see local dynamics that do not reflect any general trend. But in this case, the fact is nearly 50 assembly seats across the country have gone to polls in the last few weeks. Most of these seats were held by the BJP. The only consistent trend across all these seats and states is a setback for the BJP. That cannot be a coincidence.

Nor does it look like a case of merely state-level trends. Usually, the incumbent party in the state tends to do better in bypolls. The ruling party tends to use official machinery liberally to distribute patronage. Besides, people wish to get benefits from the ruling party in the remaining part of its tenure. Hence, the bypoll results do not help gauge the public mood for the forthcoming assembly polls.

It is clear that state-level incumbency has worked in many cases. The Congress’s good showing in Uttarakhand and Karnataka was clearly due to incumbency advantage used deftly by skilful chief ministers. The Shiromani Akali Dal’s improved showing in both bypolls in Punjab (they won in one seat and improved votes in the other) also reflected the power of the ruling party, including many undue advantages. Alliance arithmetic was clearly the predominant factor in Bihar, more than the incumbency advantage. The spectacular results for the SP in Uttar Pradesh were no doubt aided by the BSP’s absence from this round of bypolls. Yet there is no doubt that the effort the ruling party had put in to revive its fortunes have paid off. The SP improved its position compared to both the previous assembly and recent Lok Sabha elections.

These are all state-level trends. One should be cautious before drawing national conclusions from them. The trouble for the BJP is that the same logic did not work in Rajasthan and Gujarat. The ruling party, sitting on national- and state-level electoral sweeps, faced significant reverses in both states. So it is not easy for the BJP to dismiss these results as predictable state-level verdicts. In fact, the BJP could not benefit where the ruling non-BJP party did not do well. It did wrest one seat in Bengal, but could not build on its recent success in Assam.

State elections, let alone bypolls, are poor indicators of national mood. Over the last two decades, the state elections have acquired autonomy from the national elections. The BJP could use this argument to deflect attention from these bypolls. But that precisely is the point. The bypoll results have demonstrated that the autonomy of state politics has not been swept away by a Modi wave. The BJP had expected that its massive victory in the Lok Sabha elections would result in a boost for the party, at least in the first one year, cutting across states. That has simply not happened.

Do we see a reversal of the Modi wave? It may be too early to jump to this conclusion. We must wait for signals from the assembly elections due in the coming months. Even that may not be conclusive. But it is hard to recall a situation where a ruling party at the Centre that came to power with a thumping majority faced reverses of this order. (The victory of the Congress in 1980 and 1984 and that of the Janata Dal in 1989 were followed by thumping victories in the assembly polls that followed.) Clearly, we would not have seen these results if the whole country was basking in the glory of “achhe din”. Something has gone wrong with the BJP’s script.

What lesson will it learn from this setback? Will it conclude that spurious issues like “love jihad” do not pay and re-orient its focus on developmental issues? Or would it think it did not polarise enough? Would the BJP shy away from cobbling together an unethical government in Delhi? Or would it conclude that its electoral prospects in the capital are bleak, and that forming a government by any means is the only way out?

The answer to these questions, more than the limited pointers of the bypolls, would give us a clear indication of the future course of politics.

The writer, a political scientist, is associated with the Aam Aadmi Party