BJP hopes to counter this strategy with what it believes to be its trump cards — Modi, and issues such as Hindutva, national security and welfare.
New Delhi: Tuesday’s losses in Karnataka add to the string of bypoll defeats the BJP has faced this year, exposing its vulnerabilities in the face of opposition’s arithmetic and the absence of an aggressively visible Modi factor, ahead of the crucial year-end assembly polls and next year’s Lok Sabha elections.
Of the five bypolls in Karnataka, the BJP managed to win just one, with the Congress-JD(S) alliance out-maneuvering it. This comes barely months after the BJP emerged as the single-largest party in the assembly elections in the state, even though it failed to form the government.
Although the party and PM Narendra Modi often mock the concept of a united opposition, Karnataka’s defeat re-affirms that arithmetic can trump the BJP. Despite putting on a brave front, the party, however, is well aware of this vulnerability.
“The Karnataka results show we are vulnerable while confronted with a united opposition in an election where Modi is not the main factor,” said a highly placed source in the BJP who did not wish to be identified.
“This further reinforces that we have to play the PM card to the hilt in the assembly and Lok Sabha polls,” the BJP leader said.
PM Modi does not campaign in bypolls but has been aggressively projecting himself in all other elections, including assembly and civic polls like the municipal polls in Delhi last year.
Also read: Karnataka CM Kumaraswamy’s wife Anitha wins Ramanagara assembly seat in bypolls
Series of bypoll debacles
The party began this year by facing a drubbing in bypolls in Alwar and Ajmer in Rajasthan. In the course of the year, the party went on to lose a slew of bypolls, including in Gorakhpur, Phulpur and Kairana in Uttar Pradesh, besides facing losses in assembly bypolls in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
It also lost the Bhandara-Gondia Lok Sabha bypoll in Maharashtra.
All of these are states ruled by the BJP. In Uttar Pradesh, a grand alliance of all opposition forces got the better of the BJP, despite Gorakhpur being Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s home turf.
Of the 30-odd Lok Sabha bypolls held since 2014, the BJP has managed to win just around one fifth.
With opposition parties looking to forge a grand coalition or at least smaller, state-specific coalitions, ahead of 2019, the BJP will hope to counter the arithmetic with what it believes to be its trump cards — Modi, and a medley of emotive issues such as Hindutva, national security and welfare.
“Wherever there are coalitions, the math will not favour us. Bypoll losses this year have shown that,” said another BJP source.
Also read: Dinesh Gundu Rao: The accidental politician holding together Karnataka’s shaky alliance
“Even in places like Rajasthan, where it was a bipolar contest, it has shown that Modi not campaigning costs us heavily. He will have to literally carpet-bomb with his rallies ahead of 2019,” the BJP leader added.
Could it be that he kept away from convassing because he knew that they would lose?
Prof PK Sharma, Freelance Journalist,Barnala(Punjab)
The Karnataka bypolls results again ring alarming bells for the duo of NaMo-Amit Shah and BJP !
The results are a harbinger of change and optimism for the Congress, JD(S) TDP and other
anti-BJP forces represented by the regional parties in the opposition !
After May 15 Karnataka Assembly Poll Results Saga culminating in the unexpected formation of Congress-JD(S) Combine government in Karnataka outsmarted NaMo-Amit Shah’s invincibility to dominate the scene in Karnataka too ultimately turning tables upon them. There was a slip between the cup and the lip eventhough BJP emerged as the single largest party in the Karnataka Assembly Polls this year !
This saga development proved to be a turning point boosting up the morale of the opposition in the nation to challenge the supremacy of NaMo-Amit Shah !
It will prove to be a magical formula for the anti-BJP opposition parties in the ensuing May,2019 Lok Sabha Polls too !
Sans any doubt, NaMo,Amit Shah and BJP are at their wits end how to avert the slipping political ground under their very feet?
Their problems, hardships, difficulties, woes, worries and panic will multiply and mount further in the times to come ! They are themselves to blame none else for the things slipping out of their hands as well as going beyond their control !
Prof PK Sharma, Freelance Journalist
Pom Anm Nest, Barnala (Punjab)
On welfare, normal growth delivers continuing improvements in the standard of living for most families. Hence LPG connections or construction of toilets is not something can deliver a huge electoral dividend. If anything, growth has been disappointing, most families have little reason for cheer this Diwali. National security, unless an exceptional event takes place, does not swing an election. Even here, nothing to write home about. Maybe I am too agnostic for the hair to stand on the nape of my neck at the prospect of a pilgrimage to Mansarovar, but Hindutva seems to be a tired old cliche.