After UP and Punjab, BJP Suffers Losses in Rajasthan Local Body Bye-Elections

In what is becoming a trend, BJP is losing ground in rural areas as shown by a series of local body election results this year. The latest in this is the Rajasthan local bye elections, the results of which were declared on 19 December. Congress has won a majority of seats in these bye-elections to urban and rural local bodies held last week. A total of 45 seats went to polls out of which Congress grabbed 25.

From the 26 Panchayat Samiti seats where elections were held, Congress won 16, and from the 14 urban bodies seats it won six while BJP won 7. Congress also took all four Zilla Parishad seats. Although urban areas are considered a stronghold of BJP, the fact that Congress won almost the same number of seats as BJP is being seen as a big jolt to the ruling BJP.

BJP has been ruling the state since 2013 after it wrested power from Congress. The local body bye-poll results have invigorated the anti-BJP camp in the state, which has seen massive protests by farmers earlier this year. The Vasundhara Raje led govt. had to bow to the pressure from farmers and accept their demands for loan waivers and better prices for farm produce.

Farmers’ anger of the kind expressed in Rajasthan has been visible in many states across the country and it is reflected in recent local body elections.

Earlier, on 17 December, the BJP-Akali Dal alliance suffered a humiliating defeat in Punjab’s local bodies’ elections. It lost all three municipal corporations of Amritsar, Jalandhar and Patiala, with Congress winning 189 of the 225 wards up for grabs. The BJP-SAD alliance won just 25 wards and AAP could not win a single seat. All three corporations were earlier held by BJP-SAD.

Of the 32 municipal councils and nagar panchayats that went to polls, 28 were won outright by Congress while in 4 Congress tied with BJP-SAD. In all, out of the 414 wards where polling was held, Congress won 267 wards while BJP-SAD could win only 52. AAP won in just one ward and independents in 94. The municipal councils and nagar panchayats were spread over 17 districts of the state. In March this year, Congress had decisively won the Assembly elections, wresting power from the unpopular BJP-SAD government.

In Uttar Pradesh, where BJP had won a huge mandate in Assembly elections in March this year, the saffron party had suffered major reverses in local body elections held earlier this month. Although it won handily in 12 of the 14 municipal corporations, it lost heavily in the semi-urban and rural areas. Of the 5434 Nagar Panchayat members, the BJP could win only 662, and of the 5261 Nagar Palika Parishad seats (5217 results declared) it won only 904 seats. In all, BJP’s vote share plummeted from about 40% to 31%, mainly in the rural areas.