BJP's bypoll setbacks: Who'll take the blame?

The BJP has lost big time in the March 11 byelections for three Lok Sabha seats and one of two Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, states that it rules. Ordinarily, byelection wins and losses would not yield a national trend. But defeats in these two Hindi-heartland states have come on a straight string of humiliating losses in byelections in the BJP-held heartland states of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh only weeks earlier, further boosting the BJP’s opponents.

The overall message seems to be that the BJP has suffered crushing bypoll defeats in a big way in states where it’s in power. These setbacks have come when the next Lok Sabha election is just around a year away and could even be held earlier due to political compulsions.

At a time when there is confusion in the ranks of the BJP-led NDA coalition at the Centre, a string of defeats — on the heels of a win that was a near defeat in the Assembly polls in the BJP’s stronghold of Gujarat — cannot enthuse potential allies.

Among current allies, the Shiv Sena has already said it won’t go into the next election with the BJP. The TDP recently left the Narendra Modi government. Will it now take the next step and quit the NDA? And what about the dissatisfied Akali Dal?

In the recent byelections in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, the Congress registered convincing victories against the BJP in one-on-one contests. In Sunday’s bypolls in Bihar, the RJD of Lalu Prasad Yadav, who is in jail after conviction in fodder scam cases, won a Lok Sabha and an Assembly seat, decimating the BJP for the Parliament seat and the JD(U) for an Assembly seat.

The Bihar byelections were widely seen as a trial of strength for the newly-formed opportunistic JD(U)-BJP alliance. The JD(U) won the 2015 Assembly polls as an ally of the RJD, but last year dumped its partner to sail with the BJP.

In UP, Akhilesh Yadav’s SP and Mayawati’s BSP — who had been antagonistic to one another for a quarter century — pooled resources to make SP candidates win decisively. Their last-minute association showed that defeating the BJP in UP is not so difficult after all, and Wednesday’s results could goad these two parties in the direction of an alliance for the next Lok Sabha election.

The result also showed that former UP chief minister Mayawati remains the prima donna of dalit politics in the state. In contrast, current CM Yogi Adityanath, the man who was given his post by the BJP brass because he was the monk of Gorakhpur and wears a Hindu holy man’s robes, has lost face. He could not make the BJP win in his pocket borough. If he’s the fall guy for UP, who will be the fall guy for losses elsewhere?