Bye-elections are usually inconsequential. They rarely change the arithmetic and never pose an existential threat to the government in power. The results of the three bye-elections declared on Monday, 3 August in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, will have no effect on the brute majority that BJP enjoys in all the three state assemblies.

In Bihar, for example, the BJP had 202 MLAs in a House of 240. The loss of the Bankipur seat will reduce it to 201. In Gujarat BJP has 160 MLAs in a House of 182 whereas in Madhya Pradesh BJP MLAs numbered 164 in a House of 230.

While the arithmetic does not change, bye-elections can change the chemistry and psychology on the ground. Indira Gandhi, ousted as prime minister in 1977, stormed back to Parliament after winning a bye-election in Chikmagalur in Karnataka and led the Congress back to power in 1980. V.P. Singh won a bye-election in Allahabad in 1988 and swiftly became prime minister a year later.

The Indian National Congress, which failed to win a single seat in Uttar Pradesh in the 1977 general election, created a toehold when Mohsina Kidawi won a bye-election in Azamgarh in 1978 and two years later the Congress won 309 out of the 425 seats in the UP assembly.

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While it certainly appears far-fetched to see the 3 August results as a ‘beginning of the end’ of the BJP, they do signal undercurrents which should worry the party. They seem to be an early warning to both the BJP and the Opposition on the shifting patterns on the ground. They are also another warning that voters cannot be taken for granted.

The results are a signal to the Opposition that the invincible electoral machine of the BJP is not so invincible after all. The psychological boost the results may provide to the opposition is hard to measure; and the actual impact will undoubtedly depend on the lessons the opposition draws, now that they know the depths of disappointment and dissatisfaction that prevails even among the committed voters of the BJP.

These results have shown the cracks in the BJP, and also that the party does not look as cohesive and united as before.

Since the Lok Sabha elections in 2024, as many as 10 assembly bye-elections have been held. The BJP has won five of........

© National Herald