March 14, 2018
Chennai: Three by-election results two Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh and one from Bihar – have the potential to alter the political landscape of the country in the 2019 general elections.
Results of the by pols, whether it is UP, Rajasthan, Bihar, or elsewhere are an indication of the anger of the people against the BJP government at the centre. In the words of Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia said the people are holding this government as anti-farmer, anti-worker, anti-youth and anti-middle class and the by election results are an indication of the way the mood of the nation is changing, he said.
For the first time in 30 years, in Uttar Pradesh its chief minister Yogi Adityanath was poised to lose his own bastion of Gorakhpur and the BJP lost the seat previously held by deputy chief minister in Phulpur by whopping margin to SP candidate.
Interestingly, the SP and BSP of Mayawati came to an election-eve understanding, something that was no expected by the BJP or factored in and lost the game at that stage itself.
Coupled with strategy on the ground, a social engineering worked out by SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and BSP chief Mayawati, is the voter anger against the BJP and its leaders and their behaviour. Otherwise, it is not possible for a party to get defeated within just a year of sweeping the state with such a huge mandate in assembly elections in 2017.
The final margin in Phulphur is over 50,000, which is considered huge in a bypoll to the parliament seat. Similarly in Gorakhpur, the margin is close to 30,000 votes and more important here the SP has beaten Yogi from where he won five consecutive times.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath said that the BJP was foxed by the “opportunistic alliance between SP and BSP” and for the 2019 general elections this factor would be considered before finalising strategy for the general elections.
Already, the victory in just two by polls in Uttar Pradesh has energised the opposition, whose leaders are sending in congratulatory messages to Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati. Similarly, in Bihar, Lalu Prasad Yadav’s son Tejaswi Yadav, led the party in winning one assembly and one parliament seats described it as a slap of the people against Nitish Kumar for stabbing RJD and Lalu Prasad Yadav.
The RJD won Jehanabad assembly seat and Araria Lok Sabha seat in Bihar and the ruling JDU-BJP combine could just win Bhabua assembly seat.
“Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and the BJP has formed the government in Bihar through the backdoor,” Tejaswi Yadav charged congratulated Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati.
He said that all opposition parties, including the Congress must come together to beat the BJP in the general elections.
But he expressed the apprehension that from today, all the governmental agencies will work overtime to target opposition leaders and implicate them in cases. “But we will untie and fight,” he told a private television channel.