BJP's majority at risk after bypoll loss

New Delhi: BJP's repeated losses in the by-polls have ascended the concern for the party's star faces - Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his lieutenant Amit Shah. The saffron party has lost a total of eight Lok Sabha seats. The tag of 'single largest party' is also at risk and is entirely reliant on its allies in the NDA to prove its majority in the lower house of 545 members.

Since the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the losses in Ajmer and Alwar (Rajasthan), Gorakhpur and Phulpur (UP), Gurdaspur (Punjab), Ratlam (Madhya Pradesh) Kairana (Uttar Pradesh) and Bhandara-Gondiya (Maharashtra) have come as a big blow to the incumbent party.

Taking into account the resignation of BS Yeddyurappa and Sriramulu, the two by-polls are still pending in the state of Karnataka, where the BJP too confronted a major face-off recently.

Meanwhile, political observers feel that Kairana result is the curtain-raiser of the resurgence show of the oppositions. The winner Tabassum Hassan of Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) was backed by the Samajwadi Party (SP). However, both of the other major stakeholders Congress and Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) did not field candidates. At the same time, BJP failed to gain the sympathy votes for Mriganka Singh, daughter of Gujjar leader Hukum Singh who died in February this year, necessitated the bypoll. He had become infamous during his tenure for mooting the hypothesis that Hindus were being forced to migrate because of hooliganism perpetrated by Muslims.

Importantly, the Prime Minister strategically inaugurated the Delhi-Meerut highway and held a rally in the neighbouring Baghpat a day before the by-polls. The BJP had put in all its weight behind its candidates. Despite that, the opposition won.

Furthermore, in the last six years, the region witnessed a major shift of Jat voters from BJP, after them reeling under agrarian distress. It also led the bond between Jats and Muslims. Hassan will now be the only Muslim representative from UP in the Lok Sabha. Hukum Singh had polled 5, 65,909 votes whereas the RLD, BSP and SP (which finished second) candidates together polled a little more than 5, 32,201 votes in 2014.

On the other hand, BJP citadel Palghar witnessed the parting of BJP and Shiv Sena this time, but BJP managed to retain its power. Sena finished with a close second. The ruling party also faced distress over the land acquisition in this part of Ahmadabad-Mumbai Bullet train project which covers 28 villages here.

The Bhandara-Gondiya seat fell vacant after BJP's Nana Patole defected to the Congress, where the Congress-NCP alliance managed to seize the power, despite the BJP candidate Hemant Patel campaigned in the name of PM Modi and the Chief Minister Devendra Fadnaviz.

Apart from UP and Maharashtra, the saffron party is also reeling from the falling strength in both Bihar and Jharkhand where BJP is ruling party. In the only assembly seat in Bihar, Jokihat, the Janata Dal (United) candidate Murshid Alam, also backed by its ally BJP, lost to the Rashtriya Janata Dal candidate Shahnawaz Alam and failed to retain its Muslim support. Shanawaz's brother Sarfaraz Alam, who was the MLA here, had resigned from the seat as the JD (U) MLA and won the Araria Lok Sabha by-poll as the RJD candidate.

Similarly, the JMM, an ally of the Congress, won both the Gomia and Silli assembly seats in Jharkhand. In Gomia, the JMM candidate Babita Devi won by a margin of 1,344 votes against AJSU candidate Lambodar Mahato, an ally of the BJP.

However, BJP vanguards do not feel that this will have any impact, especially in terms of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. They also feel that Shiv Sena will join NDA ahead of the general elections, a senior BJP leader said. At the same time, he also mentioned, "We should not consider Uttar Pradesh as one state. We should segregate into different parts and should highlight local prominent faces. This state has a major stake in government making in 2019. I feel BJP should also address the regional distress and should come up with a solution ahead of the Lok Sabha elections."

"At the same time, I believe that the new schemes by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government and his governance will help BJP to retain his power," the senior BJP leader further added.