BJP vulnerability revealed

Mumbai: The bypolls in Maharashtra have indicated that though the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is still dominating the state’s political sphere, it can be challenged. The party’s rapid decline from 53.72 per cent of the vote share, when it contested the general elections in 2014 in alliance with the Shiv Sena, to 30.75 per cent while contesting against Shiv Sena in Palghar is not negligible. The party even lost the Bhandara-Gondia seat in Vidarbha, a BJP bastion.

Political observers believe that BJP can only slow down the decline, as it may not be possible to reverse the trend in the election year.  The BJP won the Palghar seat but its vote share fell by almost 23 per cent compared to 2014. The party bagged 2,72,782 votes but the voting percentage was only 30.75. This shows that the party has lost much ground since 2014. One reason was its break up with Shiv Sena. In 2014, Sena was part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). But now, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray has decided that the party will contest elections on its own. This has impacted the BJP’s performance. The Sena won 2,43,210 votes with 27.42 per cent vote share and remained at number two.

In Bhandara-Gondia, the BJP lost to the NCP by a margin of 48,097 votes. The BJP got 41.52 per cent of the votes, whereas the NCP could win 46.60 per cent of votes. In 2014, the BJP had got 50.62 per cent votes and NCP was number two with 38.16 per cent. From falling to 41 per cent from 50 where only two major candidates were contesting signals a huge decline in a BJP bastion where the party had won all seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections as well as 44 out of 62 Assembly seats in the state elections that year.

“This is a turning-the-tables moment for the Opposition. The BJP losing 23 per cent vote share is itself a big decline. In Vidarbha it lost almost 10 per cent vote share. This indicates the public mood ahead of the 2019 elections. The BJP can only slow down this decline if the focus is on governance in the remaining period,” said senior political analyst Prakash Bal.