Silver lining for the BJP in Karaina by-polls 2018

After the BJP’s loss in Kairana, how the party will fight the united opposition is becoming doubtful. But a closer analysis of the Kairana polls indicates that the BJP is up for this challenge. In 2014, late BJP MP Hukum Singh secured more than 50 per cent of the vote share which was more than the combined votes of the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and Rashtriya Lok Dal, contesting separately. The BJP MP won by a huge margin of 2,36,988 votes. In 2017, during the UP assembly elections also the BJP maintained its hegemony and four out of five assembly constituencies of Kairana Lok Sabha seat was won by the party. But then the vote share of the BJP was 38.2% whereas the vote share of the united opposition was 57.2% with a difference of 19 %. However, in the recently concluded Kairana By-polls this massive gap of 19% has been just reduced to a mere 4.6%. Vote share of the united opposition candidate is around 51% and vote share of the BJP candidate is around 46%. Out of the total 938742 vote caste, the united opposition candidate secured 481,182 numbers of votes and the BJP candidate got 436564 numbers of votes. In 2014 voter turnout was 73.07% and in 2018 voter turnout is just 54%.  No stone were left unturned to communalize the Kairana By-polls. Muslim religious bodies interfered in the elections and criticised the BJP. Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind’s Maulana Haseeb Siddiqui also appealed not to vote for the BJP.

Kairana comprise of 35% Muslims population but they came out in large numbers and voted against the Bharatiya Janata Party so their total vote share is higher which is around 40%. Rest of the 60% voters were the Hindus. So the BJP got 46% of its votes from 60% of the Hindu voters. Many Hindus also voted for the Independent Hindu candidates or Hindu candidates of other parties. Total votes polled to other Hindu candidate are 14,940. This suggests that Hindu communities of Kairana like dalits, jats, jatavs, gujjars etc voted in BJP’s favor, hardly anyone of them felt alienated from the Bharatiya Janata Party. This is certainly a bad news for the self proclaimed election experts who are dancing in newsroom and jubilantly writing long newspaper columns about Hindus being angry with the Bharatiya Janata Party and voting against it. The ground reality is very different from what so-called experts are presenting. In fact, this should send worry signals to the united opposition that despite trying each and every move they have been unsuccessful to deviate Hindu voters away from the Bharatiya Janata Party. Infact the Hindus are still strongly standing with the Bharatiya Janata Party and the picture is unlikely to change in the 2019 General elections as well, where voter turnout will be more and the result might be very different.

All this suggest that the Bharatiya Janata Party seems to have increased its vote share massively, and the united opposition’s cumulative vote share seems to have reduced to a great extent. The gap is narrowing and that too in an election where the turnout was low among the Bharatiya Janata Party supporters and high among the opposition supporters. The Kairana by-polls also indicate that more than two thirds of the majority community is firmly backing the Bharatiya Janata Party. These are good signs for the BJP whereas the united opposition is still unable to bring its supporters out of their homes to cast their votes on an election day.