Bypolls: BJP Losing Ground in Bengal, Congress Slowly Gaining in Hindi Heartland

Supporters of TMC candidate from Ranaghat South Assembly constituency Mukut Mani Adhikari celebrate after he won the West Bengal Assembly by-elections on Saturday.

(Courtesy: PTI)

The results of the bypolls in 13 seats across 7 states — Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, West Bengal, and Bihar — have turned out to be a big disappointment for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The INDIA bloc won 10 of the seats, the NDA won two, and the others one. In terms of vote share, while the INDIA bloc recorded 51 percent, NDA got 46 percent, and while the INDIA bloc gained five seats, the NDA and Others lost two and three seats, respectively.

The Congress-led INDIA bloc is citing these results as proof of the anti-BJP mood of the people across the country. The BJP-led NDA is downplaying the same, highlighting its hyper-local nature, and dismissing the results as not having any national-level implications.

The truth lies somewhere in between. Here are seven takeaways.

1. Congress is Gradually Improving in the Hindi Heartland

The Congress and the BJP faced each other in six seats in the following states — Himachal, Uttarakhand, and Madhya Pradesh. The Congress won four, two each in Himachal (Dehra and Nalagarh) and Uttarakhand (Manglaur and Badrinath), while the BJP won two, one each in Himachal (Hamirpur) and Madhya Pradesh (Amarwara).

While the Congress won the state elections in Himachal in 2022, winning 40 of the 68 seats on offer, it is now proving that that victory was not a fluke.

Nine bypolls have happened since then, six in June 2024 and three in July 2024, and the Congress has won six and BJP three. In Uttarakhand, where there is a BJP government, the Congress retained Badrinath, and in Manglaur it defeated the BJP candidate, a seat earlier held by BSP.

This is in line with the Congress party’s improved strike rate in direct contests versus the BJP since the 2024 general elections. It improved its strike rate from eight percent in 2019 to 29 percent in 2024, winning 62 direct fights against the BJP, compared to just 15 in 2019.

2. BJP is Losing the Narrative in Bengal

The BJP had won three of the four seats going to bypolls in West Bengal in 2021. It couldn’t save a single seat this time. The TMC continued with its strong run since the Lok Sabha polls where it won 29/42 seats, pushing BJP to 12/42, a loss of six seats.

The BJP has lost all these seats by big margins of 33,000-62,000 votes. While the TMC recorded an average vote share of 60 percent, the BJP could garner just 29 percent of the votes.

Neither the CAA nor the Sandeshkhali issue worked in the general elections. The party is still unable to shed its "outsider" tag.

It still doesn't have a leader with pan-state acceptability who can match the charisma of Mamata Banerjee. Neither its aggressive Hindutva nor its caste-based politics are working either.

3. Party Hoppers Getting Thumbs Down From Voters

The BJP fielded six candidates who crossed over from other parties in these bypolls, one each in Punjab, MP and Uttarakhand, while 3 turncoats in Himachal (three independents who backed its Rajya Sabha candidate last year). Four of them lost while two of them won, one each in Amarwara and Hamirpur.

In June this year, six by-polls were held in Himachal where BJP fielded the six Congress MLAs who were disqualified as they didn’t back its official nominee Abhishek Manu Singhvi in the Rajya Sabha polls. Four of them lost while two won, with a similar strike rate of 33 percent.

Data analysed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) reveals that on the whole, 52 percent of the 433 MLAs and MPs who defected between 2016 to 2020 and contested elections were able to retain their seats.

In the assembly bypolls, the success rate of defectors was much higher, with 39 (81 percent) of the 48 defectors getting re-elected. This now seems to be coming down.

4. BJP/NDA Gaining Traction in Punjab and Tamil Nadu

The BJP candidate acquired the second spot in the Jalandhar West seat, ahead of the Congress and the Shiromani Akali Dal. Though Jalandhar is an urban and Hindu community-influenced seat, and its candidate was an Aam Aadmi Party MLA, it still is no mean achievement.

Even in the 2024 general elections, in which it couldn’t win even a single seat, the BJP was leading in 23 of the 117 assembly segments with around 19 percent vote share, a gain of nine percentage points. The Akali Dal facing an existential crisis provides an opening to the BJP in the state.

In the seat of Vikravandi in Tamil Nadu, the BJP-backed Pattali Makkal Katchi candidate emerged as the runner-up, continuing with its decent performance in the general elections. While NDA did not win any seat in the 2024 elections, it recorded a 19 percent vote share, while the same for the AIADMK (All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) was 21 percent.

The AIADMK boycotting the by-polls proved to be a bad strategy and provided the BJP with an opening. In 2021, the DMK recorded 49 percent of the vote share in this seat while the AIADMK recorded 44 percent. In by-poll, the DMK recorded 63 percent while PMK 29 percent. Of the AIADMK vote share, around 29 percent was lapped up by PMK (⅔) while around 15 percent by DMK (⅓). So, the weakening of the AIADMK could help the BJP-led NDA make further gains in the state.

5. MP Becoming the Strongest Fort for BJP After Gujarat

The BJP managed to win the bypoll in MP, continuing with its strong form witnessed in state elections last year, where it won a two-thirds majority and a clean sweep in the 2024 general elections. This is one state where the Congress party has not been able to get its act together (it even managed to win a seat in BJP’s stronghold Gujarat in the general elections).

The BJP has a very strong organisational presence and grassroots leaders, while Congress is going through a generational shift after Kamal Nath and Digvijay Singh, and still coming to grips with the exodus of Jyotiraditya Scindia and co.

6. RJD Needs to Tweak Its Strategy in Bihar

An independent candidate won the Rupauli seat in Bihar, snatching it from the Janata Dal (United). The Rashtriya Janata Dal candidate Bima Bharti finished as the second runner-up. She had hopped on from the JD(U) and lost the Lok Sabha polls to Pappu Yadav but was still given the ticket, giving a message that the party rewards non-performance.

The RJD-led INDIA bloc in Bihar was not able to make a significant dent in the NDA tally even during the general elections. Poor ticket distribution with the party's inability to shed its MY (Muslim-Yadav) image and opposing Pappu Yadav led to a loss of two or three neighbouring seats. Tejashwi needs to learn from Akhilesh on how to fully exploit anti-incumbency against the Nitish government in the assembly polls due next year.

7. Increasing Bipolarity in Indian Politics

The bypoll results also highlight an increasing bipolarity in Indian politics. The Bahujan Samaj Party and Independents held four of these 13 seats, they lost all of these in Himachal and Uttarakhand. They gained a seat in Bihar, leading to a net loss of three seats.

The contest is now increasingly becoming pro or anti-BJP/NDA. Anti-BJP voters are not wasting their votes on smaller parties/independents.

This trend was visible in the general elections as well. The aggregate vote share of regional parties (non-Congress, non-BJP) declined to its lowest level in India’s electoral history in the 2024 general elections. Non-aligned parties like the BSP, BJD, YSRCP, SAD, AIADMK etc, which had won 58 seats in 2019, were reduced to a mere 18 seats in 2024.

(Amitabh Tiwari is an independent political commentator and can be reached at @politicalbaaba on X [formerly Twitter]. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)