Takeaways from bypolls 2018: Challenges for the united opposition, BJP’s hunt for the big narrative and more

‘We are beating BJP in their own game’, was the gist of a beaming Akhilesh Yadav’s message after united Opposition’s candidate Tabbasum Hasan won the prestige fight in Kairana.

Akhilesh still smarting from his Assembly poll humiliation last year, despite running a decent ship said that when they talked about development, media raved about how BJP understands getting social engineering right.

And now it is coming back. Akhilesh was hinting at the united Opposition virtually making it impossible for BJP to win in Kairana (which has a significant percentage of Muslims and Jatavs).  

In Noorpur Assembly too, SP candidate managed to wrest the seat from BJP. And, this was almost the case throughout the 11 states where by-polls were held. Opposition forces retaining their fortress and, in some instances, gaining at the NDA’s expense. Now, to make this as a test case for 2019 would be too hasty a call. But what it does say is that the next general election is anything but a done-deal, despite BJP dominating India’s political landscape for the last four years.

While accepting that bypolls are not necessarily always reliable indicator of the future, certain inferences can be made based on the broad trends emerging from 4 Lok Sabha and 11 Assembly election results (10 bypolls and 1 assembly for RR Nagar in Bengaluru):

Opposition united is needed, but scaling it up is a challenge:

The opposition would like to make the election a pitch battle between them and the BJP, slugging it out in 543 constituencies. That is to say that the opposition would hope for the general election to be sum-total of all the seats rather than making it a big narrative of personalities and ideas.

It neither has any coherent ideological platform to fight the NDA government nor an acceptable PM candidate.

The only glue of this much-vaunted opposition unity is the urge to ensure political relevancy at a time when the BJP juggernaut is sweeping across the country.

Putting aside all moral ambiguities of ideology, the only goal is to defeat BJP. But even one-point agendas may not be as straightforward.

 In Kairana, RLD got votes transferred from SP and BSP. BSP cadres are dedicated and can be trusted to do so in the Lok Sabha. But will it happen the other way around?

 Will upper-caste voters of Congress and SP or even RLD, support a Dalit candidate propped up by BSP? Vote equations are not exactly arithmetic problems and are subject to many caveats.

SP and Congress coming together couldn’t make a dent in BJP’s winning strategy in 2017. However, the 20% odd vote BSP has can ensure that BJP can be wiped off from Uttar Pradesh map if the united opposition clicks.

It can be the state which seals BJP’s fate in 2019. But a lot would depend on how seat-sharing gets on, how well the cadres support each other on the ground and how the parties handle leaders who would be upset after being denied tickets?

Mayawati has already indicated that she would be willing to pull the plug if BSP doesn’t get a fair deal. So, united Opposition will have a different ball game coming from heightened expectations in 2019.

Congress needs to be flexible:

Congress showed lot of prudence and understanding in these bypolls by allowing their allies to take centre stage. The result is there for everyone to see.

From Uttar Pradesh to Bihar, Jharkhand to Maharashtra, UPA allies have won. For Congress, 2019 will be about looking at the bigger picture and play the supporting game wherever needed abdicating any ego they have of being the ‘natural party to govern’.

Sometimes to score, playing from the flanks is also effective than just missing chances inside the box. Rahul Gandhi needs to act as an interlocutor to intervene wherever seat sharing talks would get stuck. If Congress is truly serious about a united Opposition coalition, it needs to get BSP on onboard in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, where Mayawati’s party has pockets of influence.  Surveys are showing Congress ahead in both states. An alliance with BSP can effectively bury BJP in both states.  In 2019, Congress has to look at the bigger picture, even if that implies lesser odds of Rahul Gandhi becoming PM.

NDA struggling in Bihar and Jharkhand?

When Nitish Kumar ditched RJD to get back in the NDA fold, most believed that Bihar is locked for 2019. Between BJP and JD(U), they commanded well over 40% of votes, which was supposed to be a handful against RJD and Congress. Well not quite, as successive bypolls have shown.

 RJD under Tejashwi Yadav has got a new lease of life, a sympathy wave from father Lalu’s prosecution.

 His dabbang style of conversation, taunting Nitish chacha is echoing with the voters. RJD has now won three byelections in row, including in Jokihat, where the party managed to flip the seat from JD(U).

Nitish, once the secular messiah, runs the risk of alienating his Muslim vote base by aligning with BJP. He knows that, and yet chose to join, thinking that the pros would be more than the cons. While the jury is still out on it, it can be said that RJD is certainly not giving up without a fight. While all eyes are on UP, Bihar actually may become a sleeper hit for UPA in 2019. NDA hopes for a clean sweep from Bihar, but that dream looks quite unrealistic right now.

In Jharkhand, Shibu Soren’s JMM has retained both the seats. Ruling BJP has come third in Gomia.

This should be worrying bells for first non-tribal CM of the state, Raghubar Das. Ruling parties are expected to win bypolls and certainly not come third. Jharkhand has been voting saffron in the last few polls but clearly JMM and Congress alliance maintains a strong base. In 2019, every seat will matter, and BJP would be desperate to repeat or better its 2014 performance of winning 12 out of 14 seats.

Despite Palghar win, Amit Shah has ‘maha’ problem:

One can’t help but feel a bit sorry for Shiv Sena. They are stuck between the rock and the hard place. Sena doesn’t exactly have the credentials of being an operator in the ‘secular’ brigade, yet it is finding to very difficult to be part of the NDA regime.

The primary reason is that Sena fears the risk of permanently becoming a junior partner in the Maha alliance. It already is the junior partner but is willing to reconcile to the truth.

 Its only calling card is that BJP has much more to lose if the alliance falls through. How exactly Amit Shah manages to convince Uddhav Thackeray will probably determine the fate of 48 Lok Sabha seats of Maharashtra.

As Palghar showed, BJP is still the party to beat where the opposition is split. But in Bhandara- Gondiya, NCP managed to wrest the seat from BJP. Five out of six assembly segments in LS are held by BJP currently. Thus, this seat getting flipped shows NCP is back in contention in the Vidarbha region, where local boy CM Fadnavis has considerable clout.

Status quo in Punjab, Kerala and Bengal

As expected, TMC scaled up its victory margin in Maheshtala, in Bengal. Adhering to the trends of past elections, BJP emerged second, though considerably lagging behind the ruling regime. With the dominance currently showed by TMC, the party can seriously hope of winning over 90% of the Lok Sabha seats in the state.

Left may be a diminished force across the country, but it is still going strong in Kerala. CPI(M) managed to retain Chengannur, which is traditionally seen as tilting Congress. At the two-year mark, Pinarayi Vijayan government still seems to enjoy considerable goodwill among people.

Captain Amarinder Singh too managed to ensure Congress wrest an assembly seat from SAD in Shahkot. The fact that AAP has become a virtually footnote in Punjab, should worry Arvind Kejriwal and he should be probably focusing about that rather than gloating about BJP’s poor performance.

Modi - the saviour?

All the aforementioned inferences point towards one common factor, BJP needs a Modi wave again to do an encore in 2019. But can lightning strike twice or simply can Modi sell his acche din slogan again? Or maybe he just needs to impress voters that he is the most credible face in the reckoning.

Whatever it might be, BJP needs a big splash to counter the opposition’s brick-and-mortar approach. The opposition is looking to do attrition politics of wearing down BJP in every seats, whereas BJP would like to mount their campaign in a high canvass where they can win seats en masse in a Presidential style of election. 

 Amit Shah’s panna pramukhs, RSS’ backing can all come as useful catalysts, but it needs to be PM Modi to do the heavy lifting. BJP needs to sweep in Hindi heart-land to harbour any chances of getting a majority government.  

Will Ayushmann Bharat be Modi’s trump card? Or is it Jan Dhan Account and Ujjwala scheme. Or will we get to hear about other clandestine dinner parties and references of Shamshaan- Kabaristhan. The opposition has showed their hands, it is now time for BJP to respond. Whatever it is, 2019 will be a fight to finish. We can’t wait for this party to start!