Bypoll Results Draw Clear Lines Between AAP, Congress; BJP’s Struggle in Choppy Waters Continues

New Delhi: Although bypolls are generally considered a done deal even before polling, given the historically high probability of ruling parties winning, the latest round of contests in five constituencies across four states were keenly watched for two crucial reasons. 

One, to understand whether the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been able to expand its footprint anywhere outside its now-established perimeter of northern and western India after over a decade of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership; and, two, to know if any of the opposition parties – especially the Congress – will show any concrete signs of a revival before the all-important Kerala and West Bengal assembly elections early next year.

The outcomes were a mixed bag for the two principal national parties but signalled clearly that the BJP is still struggling to swim against the tides it faces outside its comfort zones. The results have shown that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) isn’t a pushover. Its comprehensive victories in Visavadar, Gujarat, and Ludhiana West, Punjab, reflects its ability to bounce back after being written off by many observers following its defeat in the recent Delhi assembly election.

The BJP won only from its bastion, Kadi in Gujarat, while AAP bagged two – Ludhiana West (Punjab) and Visavadar (Gujarat). The formidable Trinamool Congress retained Kaliganj in West Bengal and the Congress sprung a surprise by wresting Kerala’s Nilambur from the ruling Left Democratic Front led by chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan. Crucially, the BJP and the Congress contested all the five seats.

AAP, no pushover

Soon after it won the two seats, AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal pointed out that the party’s win in Visavadar is a testament to its long-term presence in the state. He said that after the state’s assembly polls, the Congress lost to the BJP in all five seats vacated by the party’s elected defectors. The Congress had won 17 seats but five MLAs left to join the BJP. 

On the other hand, Kejriwal said that only one of the five AAP legislators, Visavadar MLA Bhupendra Gandubhai Bhayani, defected to the BJP but the party won from the seat again in the bypolls, showing that the “people of Gujarat” now wanted a change.

He also said that the victory in Punjab is also a stamp of approval for the Bhagwant Mann government, in what was the maverick leader’s own way to dismiss several commentators who had been indicating a surge of anti-incumbency sentiment against the state’s AAP government. 

It is indeed a feat for the AAP to win Visavadar for the second time in a state where BJP dominates every layer of politics, but it also signals a larger switch in Gujarat. Visavadar, in Junagadh district, had been a Congress bastion. The saffron party has not won this seat in the last 18 years. AAP had secured over 10% votes in its very first election, and most of its gains came at the expense of the Congress. The division in the opposition votes led the BJP to its biggest victory in the state, although its vote share remained more or less the same in comparison to past elections.

But AAP gained from its spirited campaign, concerted efforts to combine anti-BJP social forces and new aspirational voters, and a promise of honest governance at a time when a complacent Congress persistently ignored its problems in the state like a never-ending leadership crisis, lazy and listless opposition to BJP state government, and failure to defend and retain its upcoming leaders like Hardik Patel and Alpesh Thakor. 

Visavadar was won by a similar Patidar agitation face – Gopal Italia. Italia has remained with the AAP, but to Kejriwal’s credit, he was appointed to take on the BJP in what would have generally been an uneventful byelection. His win has now catapulted the AAP and memories of the Patidar agitation once again in the state. AAP has successfully signalled that it may be the only natural alternative to the Congress in the state. How a large chunk of the traditional Congress voters in Visavadar switched to the AAP camp in the last two elections is a case in point. 

The Kejriwal-led party’s performance in Visavadar has also shown that it retains its base in Saurashtra and Kutch regions, and could well become the largest opposition force in the days to come.

That will clearly come as a challenge to the Congress that has finally woken up to take stock. Rahul Gandhi in one of his recent speeches in Gujarat had pointed out the alleged presence of metaphorical Judases in the party’s state unit. The grand old party has also begun a pilot project to implement one of its decisions made at the Udaipur Declaration (2022) to make the party’s district units more socially representative than before in Gujarat. It has implemented leadership changes and has been engaged in taking steps to transform the party unit. 

How such efforts by the Congress pan out as AAP continues to make an impact in Gujarat will determine who between the two opposition parties emerges as the primary opposition force in the assembly elections slated for late 2027. 

The choice of Sanjeev Arora, the other AAP candidate, who won in Punjab’s Ludhiana West, too came as a strategic winner. Arora, currently a Rajya Sabha MP, enjoyed considerable popularity. The BJP had invested all its energy in the Punjab bypolls. It was especially a test for its new state chief, a former senior Congress leader, Sunil Jakhar. Given its high number of Hindu voters, Arora, with his strong goodwill, staved off the BJP candidate and an otherwise popular figure Jiwan Gupta. 

The Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal), BJP’s former ally, which was looking to make a mark in the bypolls finished a poor fourth, indicating a strong possibility of an emerging bipolarity between the AAP and the Congress in the northern Sikh-dominated state – something that could very well reflect in the next assembly elections. 

Congress’s only solace

The grand old party sprung a surprise by winning Nilambur by a margin of over 10,000 votes. Its candidate Aryandan Soukath defeated one of the rising stars in the Left, M.Swaraj, and the Left-backed independent MLA P.V. Anvar who had resigned recently after a fall-out with the chief minister. With this win, the Congress-led United Democratic Front may have put to rest multiple speculations about its alleged scattered game plan ahead of the next year’s assembly elections.

The Congress was facing a severe leadership crisis over the last four years, after the LDF unusually came to power for successive terms. Its leaders fought openly, showed a conflict of interest with the central leadership, and its allies signalled a change of priorities vis-a-vis its partnership with the Congress. The central leadership recently bypassed all such conflicting interests in the state’s unit by appointing the little-known MLA Sunny Joseph and member of parliament Adoor Prakash as the UDF convenor and gave leadership positions to under-represented communities, signalling that it was ready to make its social representation strategy more democratic, Nilambur bypolls was the party’s first crucial test - and, it shined as the UDF constituents got together to show that it means business.

The Nilambur loss will come as a dampener for the Left Democratic Front, especially the chief minister Vijayan who has already started a campaign claiming that there was no anti-incumbency against his government, sharing a governance model for the future, and announcing executive decisions for his third consecutive term. It has also fuelled the perception that the UDF was down and out, without any clear vision for the state. However, the Nilambur outcome is going to reverse much of that, as Kerala gears up for a stiff contest early next year.

What’s next for BJP?

The BJP will like to forget about the bypolls as soon as possible. Although it contested all the seats, and fought with all its money and muscle, it could only secure its bastion Kadi, and failed to register even a noteworthy performance anywhere else. Its candidate in Nilambur, Mohan George, could secure only a little over 8,000 votes in a fray where the winner received nearly 80,000 votes. In Visavadar, its nominee Kirit Patel lost by nearly 18,000 votes – quite sharp, considering Gujarat is its strongest state. In Ludhiana West, it finished a distant third, while in Kaliganj, it finished a distant second, losing to the authoritative TMC by over 50,000 votes in the bipolar political environment of West Bengal. 

With yet another bypolls becoming a cue, it is clear that the BJP continues to struggle in untested waters. If the last decade in which BJP became a mammoth can be divided into two phases, the second half of it (2020-2025) will be counted as a period where the saffron party struggled to expand its electoral scope, or at best became stagnant, after it ballooned in an unprecedented manner in the first half (2014-2020).

That it is wearing down, even as prime minister Narendra Modi continues to display its Hindutva and muscular nationalism aggressively, is something that is clear. Despite being the single largest party, it turned into a minority from 303 seats in the Lok Sabha to 240 in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. The trend continues, irrespective of its assembly election wins in states where it was already powerful. 

Barring Odisha, which it gained, the saffron party has remained more or less like its 2019 avatar. It has shown signs of spark in states like West Bengal, Kerala, or even Tamil Nadu, but has still struggled to make a mark. 

Its concentrated portfolio in only select electorally-dominant states could prove to be riskier than it may think, as its political capital can only dwindle in the future.

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