The byelections pointers

THE IMPRESSIVE VICTORY scored by the Congress in the byelections to the Sabarkantha Lok Sabha constituency and also the Sabarmati Assembly segment in Gujarat may not have any serious impact on the national political scene as such. Yet the poll outcome is bound to send ripples within the BJP's Gujarat unit. And the Gujarat Chief Minister, Mr. Keshubhai Patel, cannot escape trouble from within his own party in the coming days. Apart from having lent a lot of importance to the byelections by way of leading the poll campaign, Mr. Patel and his partymen (including, Mr. Madan Lal Khurana, in charge of the BJP's Gujarat unit) had raised the stakes high by declaring that the polls were a referendum on the performance of the Patel Ministry in the State. And the trouncing that the party suffered in both the places (the Sabarmati verdict assumes additional significance for it falls within Mr. L. K. Advani's Lok Sabha constituency) could be the beginning of a move within the BJP that could crystallise in a demand for Mr. Patel's ouster from the Chief Minister's post. That the BJP in Gujarat is even otherwise ridden by faction feuds is a fact that becomes relevant in this context. Mr. Patel and his party will find it difficult to make light of the reverses, for the byelection results only confirm the trend witnessed in the elections to the rural and urban local bodies in Gujarat less than a year ago.

There are, indeed, other reasons too for the Congress to rejoice. Apart from Gujarat, the party's victory in the two Assembly seats in Assam, including that of Mr. Tarun Gogoi from Titabor, found the party's leaders affirming their faith in Ms. Sonia Gandhi's leadership and some of them holding out the Congress victory in the Sabarmati Assembly segment as a ``moral victory for Ms. Sonia Gandhi and a vindication of her leadership''. While it may be true that the results from Gujarat reflect popular sentiments against the BJP in the State, the Congress cannot ignore such simple facts that its nominees were trounced so badly in some other parts of the country where byelections were held the same time. As for instance, the BJP could better its performance in the Tonk (Reserved) Lok Sabha constituency in Rajasthan. Similarly, the fact that the Biju Janata Dal could retain the Rairkhol Assembly seat in Orissa despite the alienation of its leader, Mr. Naveen Patnaik, from the harsh realities - the incidence of starvation deaths in parts of the State and the insensitivity shown by the State administration - is certainly a reflection of the sad state in which the Congress is in Orissa. And this is what must concern those around Ms. Sonia Gandhi in the Congress.

Yet another important aspect of this round of byelections is the outcome in Siddipet in Andhra Pradesh. The large victory margin secured by Mr. Chandrasekhara Rao is a reflection of the extent to which this former member of the Telugu Desam has succeeded in whipping up passions for a separate State of Telengana. Mr. Rao will now enter the Andhra Pradesh Assembly as a representative of the Telengana Rashtra Samiti to constitute a three-member group (along with Mr. R. Pappa Rao and Dr. R. Ravindranath Reddy who were expelled from the Congress and the BJP for voicing the demand for a separate State) and this could give an impetus to the agitation. While the Telugu Desam chief will now be faced with the spectre of dissension within his own party at least in the Telengana region, the Congress too cannot escape significant erosion of its support base. The bad show by the Congress - its nominee lost the security deposit polling just about 3,300 votes from Sidddipet - is clearly an indication of the party's decimation in the region. And this indeed is a message that the mainstream parties in Andhra Pradesh - the Telugu Desam and the Congress - cannot ignore.

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