Analysis | BJP's Bengal Bypoll Sweep: Minority Vote Shift Or Opposition Collapse?

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is celebrating a twin victory in West Bengal bypolls, winning by a record margin in Nandigram and sweeping even the Muslim-dominated Rejinagar.

In Nandigram, BJP candidate Hasi Rani Rath secured 1,64,427 votes, while Congress candidate Milan Pradhan, out on bail in a murder case, finished second with 41,674 votes. The winning margin was 1,22,753 votes, exceeding the margin with which Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari won this seat five months ago.

"I take a pledge to take this state to the top in five years. Since the BJP came to power, we witnessed a violence-free bypoll. People have understood that this government works for development. We will also win the civic polls after Durga Puja," said Adhikari at the state secretariat.

While the bypoll results reflect BJP's dominance on the ground, they also add political weight to Adhikari, who cited the results as a breakthrough in minority votes for the BJP. "Around 60% of Muslims in Rejinagar have voted for us, and 80% of Muslims in Nandigram have voted in our favour. I had spoken about a 'friendship day' on October 6. They have responded to that. I am happy," he said. However, the EC doesn't provide data on votes polled according to religion.

This result has come as a reprieve for the Hindutva-coded BJP that says it is determined to deliver the promises made in its poll manifesto, pushing aside the "anti-minority" tag.

With the Opposition fumbling and fragmented, the scene has become almost one-sided since the BJP swept the Assembly polls earlier this year.

But how did the BJP pull the minority support, if indeed it did?

The BJP reaffirmed its 'Sab Ka Saath, Sab Ka Vikas' motto while calling out the Opposition for the "anti minority" narrative.

Speaking to NDTV, BJP leader Shishir Bajoria said, "BJP wouldn't have been in power with such a decisive majority had we not won minority support in the state polls. This 'anti-minority' tag is an Opposition myth to mislead voters. We are delivering our promises after coming to power, and that's why the minority support has increased further. For long they have been victims of appeasement politics in Bengal, and now they see development."

Political analyst and Jadavpur University professor Ishani Naskar says the bypoll results can be seen as "an early indicator of how people perceive BJP's performance in government".

The Congress, though it outperformed Mamata Banerjee's TMC and the Left, called it a "black day" otherwise. Congress' Nandigram candidate Milan Pradhan, who spent 11 out of 16 days of the main campaign in jail, walked out before the counting was completed and said, "This is a black day; voting did not happen, the vote was looted and snatched away, making it a black day for the democratic system."

In Rejinagar, former TMC leader Humayun Kabir, whose son was in the fray, was detained on voting day. "That should have created a huge wave of sympathy for the AJUP candidate, his son Golam Nabi. But that doesn't seem to be the case as Azad has got 26.29 per cent votes against the BJP's 63.14 per cent," opined Ishani Naskar.

"It also shows the typical symptoms of West Bengal's politics: the inability on the part of Opposition forces to put up a strong fight against the dominating party in power in this case. This is not healthy for any political system in the long run, just old wine in a new bottle," she added.

The TMC at one time dominated Murshidabad district, in which Rejinagar falls, even winning won 20 of the 22 assembly seats in the district in the previous elections. This year, it was reduced to only nine seats in Murshidabad, while the BJP won eight. The AJUP got two seats and the Congress three. Now the BJP has as many seats as the TMC, at nine, at the cost of Humayun Kabir's AJUP.