Congress improved its tally, BJP declined in four out of five states
By Soroor Ahmed, TwoCircles.net,
Though the Congress party’s performance in the recently held election in four out of five states have little to inspire, storm is brewing up in the BJP for the disastrous performance of the Hindutva brigade all over the country. This followed the Assembly election for the five states held last summer in which too the BJP completely got wiped out and Congress, its allies and regional parties managed to make a comeback. If this trend continues till 2014 parliamentary election there is hardly anything for the BJP to hope for.
The media generally ignored a very significant aspect in analyzing the election results. While the BJP won 119 seats in these five Assemblies in the previous election, it ended up winning just 113 in 2012. In contrast the Congress party’s figure jumped from 133 seats to 157 this time.
The problem with the Congress was that it performed below the media expectation in Uttar Pradesh and even to some extent in Uttarakhand and Punjab, yet it managed to win 40 per cent more seats than the BJP. Overall the percentage of votes secured by the Congress has increased while of the BJP declined. Yet many media-pundits are writing the Congress off but are silent about the BJP.
However, many honest political observers felt that the Congress actually got what it deserved and that in the run-up to the poll the media only created unnecessary hype about its likely performance.
While the Congress leaders failed to accept the ground reality in Uttar Pradesh and its move to woo Muslims, backwards and Dalits simply boomeranged, the BJP is still unable to analyse as to what had gone wrong. While the Congress managed to improve its tally from 22 last time to 28 –– this excludes nine seats which its alliance partner the Rashtriya Lok Dal won–– the BJP’s figure came down from 51 to 47.
Thanks to the alliance partner the Shrimoni Akali Dal’s good performance, Prakash Singh Badal managed to make a comeback in Punjab. Had it not been so, the BJP, in all practical purpose, had ensured the defeat of the alliance. Its tally fell from 19 in 2007 to 12 in 2012. It is the Akali Dal, which increased its figure by seven, from 49 last time to 56 seats this time and thus the alliance once again managed to win the same number of seats, that is 68. Had the Akalis figure, instead of increasing by seven decreased by the indentical margin, the story would have been over. Here too the number of seats of Congress increased from 44 to 46 in the House of 117.
In Uttarakhand the Congress tally increased from 21 to 32 yet it fell short of the majority of 36 in the House of 70. The BJP ended up 31 from 35 last time. What is shocking for the BJP and Team Anna is the humiliating defeat of none else, but chief minister B C Khandori, who was trumpeted as an honest and upright man. He lost in his own Assembly constituency, only exposing that something somewhere is seriously wrong within the BJP.
Interestingly, Team Anna strongly advocated and campaigned for Khandori model of Lokayukta Act. Instead the former chief minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, ousted from the post at the initiative of none else but Lal Krishna Advani in September last on the alleged charge of corruption, managed to win his seat.
The Congress performed exceedingly well in Manipur where it won 42 seats against 30 last time in the House of 60. The BJP could win only two here.
Goa is the only success story for the BJP where it increased its tally from 14 to 21 with alliance partner Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party winning three. The Congress party’s tally fell from 16 to nine. But then Manipur and Goa are small states.
The Congress can take a sigh of relief that it is the Samajwadi Party, which has grown stronger and won comfortably. It is well aware that Mulayam’s party would never support the National Democratic Alliance if in 2014 parliamentary election any such eventuality emerges. Mayawati, on the other hand, had a history of taking support from the BJP at the state level and may never hesitate in lending support to the NDA at the Centre in future, if any such situation arises.
It is due to the decline of the BJP in Uttar Pradesh that in 2007 Bahujan Samaj Party and now the Samajwadi Party managed to secure majority seats on their own. The phenomenon of the alliance or minority government in the state is over. While the Congress was ousted more than two decades back the BJP was very much in the race till the 2007 Assembly election. The virtual eclipse of the BJP in India’s largest state which sends 80 seats to Lok Sabha is a matter of concern for it.