Bellary byelection shocker for BJP

KV Prasad

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 6

The shocker of result for the Bharatiya Janata Party from Bellary became one of the most discussed political developments on Tuesday, offering parties opposed to the ruling coalition at the Centre a ray of hope of the tide turning.

While statistics show the BJP lost some nine parliamentary seats since its 282 seats in 2014, the defeat in Bellary is significant and comes close to the reversals the party faced in Gorakhpur and Phulphur in UP earlier.

The comparison is pertinent since Gorakhpur was a BJP stronghold first due to Mahant Avaidyanath and later Yogi Adityanath, both of whom were heads of the religious Gorakhpeeth order. Adityanath vacated the seat on becoming the UP Chief Minister but neither he nor his Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, at Phulphur, could rework their magic to retain the seats for the party.

Bellary came on the country’s national map in 1999 with Congress president Sonia Gandhi choosing the constituency for her electoral debut, only to be challenged with vigour by Sushma Swaraj and since 2004 the seat turned saffron, emerging as a strong bastion of the BJP, courtesy the now infamous ‘Bellary’ Brothers —Galli Janardhan Reddy and Karunakar Reddy.

Though Janardhan could not enter the area due to restrictions, his elder brother Karunakar drew distance following some differences within the family while the youngest of the siblings, Somasekhar Reddy, who resides in Bellary, was not drafted for campaign.

B Sriramulu, a confidant of Janardhan Reddy, remained incharge of the campaign for his sister and BJP candidate J Shanta against VS Ugrappa of the Congress. Both the candidates belonged to a dominant backward community with Ugrappa from nearby Tumkur district also saddled with the outsider tag.

The key for the Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) was working together and ensure no division of votes just as the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party did in UP to trounce the well-entrenched BJP. The victory in these by-polls, including in the Assembly, should bring some stability to the Congress-JD(S) alliance in Karnataka with the latter suggesting that both parties will remain together in the next year’s Lok Sabha elections.

It remains to be seen how this statement in the euphoria of the victory would translate when both get down to putting brass-tacks on seat-sharing. The BSP-SP moves in UP offers a glimpse of how difficult the task becomes when leaders get down to the basics.

For the BJP, its current strength in the Lok Sabha at 273 MPs means the party remains firmly in majority but the jolt in Bellary in this round like Gorakhpur and Phulphur means it will have to go back to the drawing board for the main battle —2019 General Election.