The opposition leaders on Sunday hailed the INDIA bloc's remarkable victory in the recent assembly by-polls, where they secured 10 out of 13 seats, leaving the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with only two seats, and an independent candidate securing one.
Ram Gopal Yadav, a senior MP from the Samajwadi Party, was quick to point out the defeat of the BJP in regions historically significant to Hinduism.
"It seems as if BJP's bubble of lies has popped... People understood their tactics... People defeated the BJP from every religious place including the Lok Sabha elections. In every place associated with Lord Ram, right from Ayodhya, Sitapur, Chitrakoot, Nasik, and Rameshawaram, the BJP has been defeated. Even Lord Ram has rejected BJP," Yadav said.
Read: ‘Vote fraud, reign of terror’: BJP's big charge at TMC on bypoll results
Noting the slender margin of the BJP's win, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP Manoj Jha said, “The two seats where BJP has won, in one of them the margin is of 1000 votes and in the other also the margin is almost the same, and that person was in Congress until recently.”
“I just hope from now on the governance is of inclusiveness and talks are held on issues of public interest. The biggest issue is unemployment, they (BJP) never talk about that,” he added.
{{/usCountry}}“I just hope from now on the governance is of inclusiveness and talks are held on issues of public interest. The biggest issue is unemployment, they (BJP) never talk about that,” he added.
{{/usCountry}}Congress leader Sandeep Dikshit interpreted the results as a clear sign of BJP's declining influence.
“Right after the Lok Sabha elections, we have won 12-13 seats in 4-5 states, which clearly indicates that the BJP's graph has been falling. Had the Lok Sabha elections been organised after 6-8 months, BJP would not have won more than 120 seats.”
“For the first time, NDA parties are performing better than BJP in their respective states and BJP is absolutely relying on them... BJP has a multiple organ failure and is failing in multiple states. It is soon headed to an ICU,” Dikshit said.
Senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP P Chidambaram expressed confidence that the “wind is behind the sails of the INDIA bloc.” In an interview with ANI, P Chidambaram said that the by-elections indicate that the 'mood' of the people is against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
"The by-elections show that the mood of the people is against the BJP. But where the structure of the Congress party is weak, I'm afraid that the 'mood' alone would not help. We have to work in states where the structure of the party is weak," he said.
"But by and large, the wind is behind the sails of the INDIA bloc," he added.
Playing down the NDA's poor performance, Janata Dal (United) leader KC Tyagi welcomed the people's mandate but cautioned against viewing the results as a landslide.
"Whatever the outcome of the by-polls are we welcome people's mandate. In 1-2 places, Congress had an extra win and they should be happy about it...but to think this as a one-sided verdict is wrong," Tyagi said.
Assembly by-polls were held in Himachal Pradesh's Hamirpur, Nalagarh and Dehra; West Bengal's Raiganj, Ranaghat Dakshin, Bagda, and Maniktala; Badrinath and Manglaur in Uttarakhand; Jalandhar West in Punjab; Rupauli in Bihar; Vikravandi in Tamil Nadu; and Amarwara in Madhya Pradesh.
The INDIA bloc parties that fielded candidates in 13 assembly constituencies are -- the Trinamool Congress (TMC), the Congress, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK).
In Himachal Pradesh, the Congress bagged two seats (Nalagarh and Dehra) while the BJP managed to win one seat--Hamirpur; the ruling TMC in West Bengal swept all four seats; the Congress bagged both of the seats in Uttarakhand; AAP secured the lone seat in Punjab; the DMK won the lone seat in Tamil Nadu; the BJP bagged the lone seat in Madhya Pradesh, whereas, the independent candidate won the lone seat in Bihar.