New Delhi: The outcome of 32 Assembly byelections has boosted the Congress’ morale for the upcoming Assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana and revived the fighting spirit among party workers in Rajasthan and Gujarat against the BJP.
On the other hand, Uttar Pradesh has showed that regional players can check the impact of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The message of the results of the Assembly bypolls earlier in Uttara-khand and Bihar, and now in nine states, is loud and clear: the ruling BJP cannot rely on the mandate it got in the Lok Sabha polls.
If the Modi wave has brought rivals Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav together in Bihar, the victory of anti-BJP parties in UP, Rajasthan and Gujarat would compel the saffron party to be submissive with ally Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, which is going to the polls on October 15.
For the Congress, its victories in Rajasthan and Gujarat are significant against the backdrop of its failure to open its account in the Lok Sabha elections in these states.
AICC general secretary Gurudas Kamat, in charge of party affairs in these states, gave results by reviving the fighting spirit of demoralised workers and through social engineering.
A Congress leader observed that the trend reflected in the bypolls in the last three and a half months showed that the political constituency of PM Narendra Modi (youth and middle class) is becoming indifferent to elections.
Party insiders said this is also a message for those who are visualising a two-party system. “Regional parties will continue to influence national politics,” they said.
As far as Maharashtra is concerned, these results would help the Congress-NCP combine re-work their electoral strategy, especially when the Shiv Sena is unsure of its relevance in the BJP-led NDA.
Meanwhile, the Congress on Tuesday said the results of the Assembly bypolls was a “good omen” for secular forces, and an eye-opener for the BJP, as the people had rejected the “politics of polarisation”.
Saying that the “Modi government’s honeymoon period with the people was over”, party spokesperson Shakeel Ahmed said.
