On expected lines

THE RESULTS OF the recent round of byelections to 11 State Assembly constituencies and the Aska Lok Sabha seat from Orissa are on expected lines. If the Bihar Chief Minister, Ms. Rabri Devi's victory from Raghopur in Bihar was a foregone conclusion given the social composition of the Assembly constituency, her victory margin - surpassing Mr. Laloo Prasad Yadav's in the February 2000 polls from there - had established the inability of the BJP-led NDA combine to make any serious inroads into the RJD's base in the post-poll situation. The fact that the combine itself is a shambles now was only clear with the ``voluntary'' exit made by Mr. Nitish Kumar from the State's political scene to join the Union Cabinet once again. The emphatic victory scored by the RJD from Raghopur was only a confirmation of sorts of the state of the NDA in Bihar. Meanwhile, Mr. Laloo Yadav, by deciding to get Mrs. Rabri Devi into the State Assembly rather than let her continue in the Legislative Council, has even while demonstrating his hold over the constituency adhered to the sound democratic principle of Chief Ministers being members of the Assembly rather than the Council.

The message is the same from the byelection result from the Aska Lok Sabha seat in Orissa. Apart from confirming that Mr. Naveen Patnaik's charisma has not waned a bit, the poll result has dispelled doubts about his hold over the party structure; coming as it did at a time when dissent seemed to be brewing in the Biju Janata Dal - the Dilip Ray affair for instance - Mr. Patnaik can now afford to concentrate on the day-to-day affairs of administration rather than get bogged down with managing internal strife in his party. That the Congress(I) could not make any headway in this coastal Orissa constituency despite the fact that Mr. Naveen Patnaik was not the candidate this time is only an indication of the extent to which the party stands weakened; the sense of irresponsibility displayed by the party's known faces (when they were in power prior to the February 2000 elections) even while parts of the State including the villages falling within the Aska Lok Sabha seat were ravaged by the cyclone must have led the party into its present state. It is time that the Congress(I) leadership realised this and restored a sense of responsibility among its ranks.

Indeed, the Congress(I) as a party may draw some consolation from its victory in the Chevella Assembly constituency in Andhra Pradesh. That the party could retain the seat that fell vacant due to the death of P. Indra Reddy, however, was only a small thing and given the turmoil within the party at the national level with sections within raising doubts over Ms. Sonia Gandhi's capability to revive its fortunes, the overall byelection results can only accentuate the debate. Indeed, the BJP too is in no better position in this sense. The fact that Mr. Kalyan Singh's fledgling outfit - the Rashtriya Kranti Party - could manage the victory of its nominee in the byelections to the Soron Assembly seat may not indicate any groundswell of support to the party. Yet, the performance of the BJP nominee from there - he finished a poor fourth - can only be seen as a message that the voters in Uttar Pradesh are not at all happy with the R. P. Gupta dispensation in the State; the wranglings within the ruling combine in Uttar Pradesh leading to a complete collapse of the administration in the State appear to have had an impact on the BJP's performance in Soron. These are signals that the BJP and the Congress(I) can ignore only at their peril. And as for the RJD in Bihar and the BJD in Orissa, the two State Governments need to attend, with more seriousness, to the task of governance.

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