Congress clean sweeps Uttarakhand by-polls: Is BJP losing its sheen?

There is something good news for the Congress to cheer. After being decimated by Modi wave in the Lok Sabha polls, in which the grand old party of India registered its worst ever poll debacle, the ruling party has won all three assembly by-poll seats in Uttarakhand. State's Chief Minister Harish Rawat led from the front and defeated his BJP rival BD Joshi from Dharchula, a traditional Congress stronghold, by a margin of over 19,000 votes.

Finally some good news for Congress:

Rawat was an MP from Uttarakhand before taking over as the Chief Minister of the hill state and had to become a lawmaker within the stipulated period of six months. The seat was vacated by legislator Harish Dhami to facilitate election of the chief minister as a legislator.

In the by-polls in other two constituencies, senior Congress leader Hira Singh Bisht beat BJP's Trivendra Singh Rawat while Rekha Arya of the Congress defeated BJP's Mohan Lal Arya in Doiwala and Someshwar, respectively.

2 of the 3 assembly seats won by Congress belonged to the BJP

By winning the by-poll, minority Congress government has attained majority in the Assembly of 70 members. The Congress will now have 35 MLA's. This victory will probably bring some cheer on the face of senior Congress leaders in New Delhi while raise the brows of BJP's newly appointed chief Amit Shah.

It is time for the Congress leadership to take positives from this result and start working for the upcoming Assembly polls in Delhi, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh.

Setback for the BJP:

This defeat comes as a huge blow for the BJP which had recently won all five parliamentary seats from the state in the LS polls. To make matters worse two of the three assembly seats won by Congress belonged to the BJP as they were vacated after BJP leaders Ramesh Pokhariyal Nishank and Ajay Tamta were elected MPs from Haridwar and Almora parliamentary seats.

The party will have to introspect what actually went wrong that resulted in its loss in the by-polls. The BJP certainly would not wish to repeat this failure when it is preparing for by-elections to fill casual vacancies in State Legislative Assemblies of Bihar, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab.

The current by-poll result will also affect the party's morale in the run up to the upcoming Assembly elections where the party is seen as the front runner of forming a government.

What possibly went wrong for the BJP?

There could be a few reasons for the by-poll results going contrary to the expectations of the BJP. The present setback for Narendra Modi-led BJP may stem from the fact that people have this feeling in their mind that the NDA dispensation's performance is not up to the mark. Though the new government has barely completed two months in office but public expectation is casting shadow on its performance.

Disgruntled voice rising against the Modi regime after it failed to curb rising inflation e.g. tomato price touching sky high rates to Rs 100/kg in retail market. Similarly, intra-fighting within the party and various divisive statements given by party leaders have also dented the party's image.

On the other hand the Congress is thriving on the negative sentiment against the incumbent government by putting all its effort in resuscitating party after recent poll debacle.

Warning bells are ringing for the BJP and the party will have to tread cautiously so that it doesn't faces such ignominious defeat in upcoming polls.