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Lessons from by-elections

By-elections rarely capture the general mood. Even when they are held simultaneously across several States, regional issues and local factors tend to over-influence, if not determine, the results. The latest round of by-elections in two Lok Sabha and 11 Assembly constituencies saw the Congress win one Lok Sabha seat in Andhra Pradesh and five Assembly seats in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan. However, the losses are nearly as significant. With Telangana Rashtra Samiti president K. Chandrasekhar Rao retaining the Karimnagar Lok Sabha seat by a margin of over two lakh votes, a record for the constituency, the demand for a separate Telangana will again haunt the Congress in Andhra Pradesh. Mr. Rao had resigned his seat, which he won in the 2004 general election with the support of the Congress, so that he could re-contest with Statehood for Telangana as his sole campaign plank. That he won impressively is an indicator that the Statehood demand might ebb and flow, but will not go away if the regional grievances are not addressed by the Central and State Governments. True, the result of one by-election cannot be seen as reflective of any groundswell of support for Statehood. After all, the TRS took a beating only recently in the local body polls. However, Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy would do well to tackle the issue of uneven development and the growing perception of discrimination in the region. The Congress' huge loss in Karimnagar did take away the gloss from the slender victory in the Bobbili Lok Sabha constituency over the principal rival in the State, the Telugu Desam Party.

In Karnataka, the defeat in the Chamundeshwari Assembly seat is an embarrassment for the ruling Janata Dal (Secular)-Bharatiya Janata Party combine. However, the Congress cannot take any real pride in the narrow victory of S. Siddaramaiah, a JD(S) dissident-turned Congressman. As long as the arrangement between the JD(S) and the BJP continues, there is no threat to the H.D. Kumaraswamy-led coalition government, but for the Congress, Mr. Siddaramaiah could be a handy tool for taunting the JD(S) in the Assembly. Actually, if the Congress has reasons to cheer, it is in its victories in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, where the party beat back the challenge from the ruling BJP. For the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the victories in the by-elections in Thiruvambadi in Kerala and Islampur in West Bengal served as proof of popular endorsement of its policies and programmes in the two Left-ruled States. The CPI(M) was expected to retain the two seats without too much trouble, and the surprise, if anything, was the thin margin in Thiruvambadi. But then, contests in Kerala are almost always close.

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