Kairana By-poll has message for everyone
There is no shadow of the doubt that the by-election of Kairana was known to everyone who was having slightest of the idea about the ground reality and demographic distribution of this region. It cannot contravene that the result of by-elections proved to be disappointing for BJP and they have lost few more numbers of seats in this election. In this backdrop, the meta-narrative has been building that NDA can be defeated by uniting all the regional parties which were adversaries of them either in the state or in the centre. Ergo, the prognosis is that they will merge among themselves to fight against NDA.
The people who are trying to assess these results in the lines of Gorakhpur and Phulpur are ignoring some interesting insights in this election. The election results of Gorakhpur, Kairana and Jharkhand can easily be distinguished and each election disseminated different messages.
The loss of Gorakhpur was colossal and it clearly pointed out that SP-BSP alliance can clobber BJP and its ally’s bastion. If we strictly go through the loss of margin and statistics provided then we would find that it was not a very huge victory for SP-BSP but it left an unfettering psychological loss for BJP as they lost their forte.
The loss at Kairana can be seen from the different angle and the message is clear for both NDA and UPA alliances. In its essence, the very uncertain nature of election cannot be ruled out and thus it can be primarily said that the parties having enormous resource can lose easily while the same can be augured for the parties forming alliances.
However, one more interesting thing pops up that usually by-elections are fought solely on the local and emotional issues. By-elections largely lack state/national narrative and development appeal. Previously, the Kairana seat was with the BJP which has a major chunk of the Muslim population. Historically, this seat was with BSP and RLD and it has been won only two times including the massive victory of 2014. The split in Muslim votes gave an extra edge to Hukum Singh of BJP.
The verdict of people in Jharkhand’s Gomia and Noorpur also illuminates certain interesting figures. It shows that BJP has the potential to fight the election despite the clubbing of regional parties into one. BJP is mentally prepared for the challenges ahead while all its adversaries are having an illusion that they can win the election bybacking alliance politics just like Janta Dal did during Indira’s regime.
If we happen to observe the margin of victory then it discloses that the margins of victory in Kairana is around 50K and in Noorrpur it is near 6K while in Gomia it boils down to 1300 only.
In Jharkhand and Noorpur all the political parties and ideological groups were fighting against BJP but they couldn’t get a margin which was expected from them and they had to satisfy themselves with their narrow victory.
The picture, circumstances and the agendas will be all different in 2019. The voting percentage, the resources available and the resources used will be all different as compared to this by-election. The party will be having the free hand to convert all the resources at one place as has been done by UPA in this by-election. This will be not the case in general election 2019 as all parties will be fighting at various place.
The result also revealed the culmination of various caste groups which came together through their representatives but could not transfer their votes to electorally. This should be the issue of concern for Mhagathbandhan.
The thrust of the issue is that the narrative which is being discussed in party offices is not being sold out by electoral. The same message goes for BJP as well that it can sell its idea continuously without delving into the end results.
There will be demagogues who will talk about hollow promises but failing to deliver pragmatically. It can be essentially said that there is some amount of anxiety amongst voters but the opposition has failed to cash that anxiety electorally and has effectively failed to convert them into concrete reality. At least the margin in votes says so.
The caste issue is much more relevant on the ground but people who are trying to utilise this equation are not considering capable to utilise this. The issue of sugarcane was the point of discussion in this election but what will be happened if this will be resolved. The only issue will remain in the fray are caste and credibility of Modi. The second will decile day by day but first will always the relevant in Indian society.
Dr. Ramanand