Left leaders stumped by BJP and allies not getting decimated in bypolls

Ravi S Singh
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, November 5

The leaders of Left parties are stumped by the BJP and its allies not getting decimated in the just concluded bypolls which were held under the shadow of the farmers’ agitation against the three Central agriculture laws.

Sources say Left leaders of the states where bypolls were held, will meet soon to assess the results.

Subsequently, their respective party headquarters will be apprised of the outcome of the meetings to help them prepare joint strategies to checkmate the BJP.

The Left parties had huge expectation from the farmers’ agitation in trumping the BJP electorally as a good number of the farmers’ unions are Left-leaning.

These parties have been supporting the protest full-on.

The bypolls were held for 29 assembly and three Lok Sabha constituencies. The outcome has been a mixed result.

A Left leader said that BJP nominee Gobind Kanda gave a run for the money to the winning INLD candidate Abhay Singh Chautala, son of former Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala, in rural Ellenabad assembly seat In Haryana. The Congress came a distant third.

The victory margin of Chautala, who had resigned from the seat expressing solidarity to farmers’ demand for scrapping of the farm laws which necessitated the bypoll, had reduced while retaining the seat.

The Congress supported the farmers’ protests upfront, too, but it has not paid dividends to it in Ellenabad.  

The result in Ellenabad has caused uneasiness among Left parties because Haryana, along with Punjab and western Uttar Pradesh, was the nerve centre of the farmers’ protest.

BKU leader Rakesh Tikait, who has become the face of the farmers’ protest, had declared open support to INLD nominee. He and other farmer leaders had campaigned against the BJP nominee.

In West Bengal, although the ruling TMC won all the four assembly constituencies, the BJP did better than combined Left and the Congress.

A leader related to West Bengal said there was expectation that the Left would be better off than the BJP especially because of the farmers’ protest, but this was not to be.

In Bihar, the JD(U), an ally of the BJP, trumped its opponents, including RJD while winning the two seats where bypolls were held.

The silver lining for the Congress, though, is that it handed humiliating defeat to the ruling BJP in Himachal Pradesh. But, on the contrary, the state had hardly stood out for farmers’ protest.

The thinking in non-BJP parties is that the BJP and the Narendra Modi government at the Centre are facing the greatest political challenge since 2014 due to the farmers’ protest.

Hence, if it has not been overwhelmed by its opponents in bypolls, there was a reason for them to be concerned.