NEW DELHI, Aug 26 (TOI): Barely three months after being decimated in the Lok Sabha contest, Congress and allies trounced BJP in assembly byelections in Bihar and Karnataka and managed to wrest seats in other states, raising the possibility of an anti-Modi political realignment in the coming months.
Out of the 18 seats at stake in four states, Congress and allies won ten while the BJP alliance took eight.
It was the second round of bypolls after the 2014 Lok Sabha contest, with BJP last month losing all three assembly seats in Uttarakhand just after winning all five LS seats in the hill state.
On Monday, the bypolls saw the BJP cede ground in every state it swept in the national polls, losing key strongholds in Karnataka (Bellary) and Madhya Pradesh to Congress. The honours were even in Punjab where Congress and the saffron party's ally Akali Dal won one seat each.
However, the riveting result came from battleground Bihar where the last-minute desperate alliance between sworn rivals Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar trumped a resurgent BJP.
The RJD-JD(U)-Congress combine won six assembly seats to BJP's four in the ten constituencies that went to polls. BJP held eight of them. It marked a sharp turnaround from the May polls when the saffron party made light of its divorce with chief minister Nitish Kumar to single-handedly sweep 31 of the 40 seats.
Given that Mandal champions Nitish-Lalu made it a point to underline that they were coming together after two decades of animosity to stop the march of "kamandal", the significance of the bypolls verdict could not be underplayed.
No sooner did the early trends materialize into results that there was a marked dip in the saffron spirits. Leaders, while calling the show disappointing, moved in to dissociate saffron mascot Narendra Modi from the "local elections" even as Nitish called it a reflection of the disappointment with the 100 days of Modi government. Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh called it a vote against "communal politics".
The success of the RJD-JD(U)-Congress alliance could stoke a rethink among the regional parties in whom the "Modi wave" put the fear of existence. Like Samawjadi Party, BSP and Congress which were routed in the 80-seater Uttar Pradesh. Or, in Maharashtra where allies NCP and Congress fell by the wayside in the LS polls and are faced with ejection from power in the coming state polls. At loggerheads over seat distribution, largely for being reconciled to defeat in state contest, the Monday results could nudge them to close ranks, believing all was not lost yet.
Congress's Perneet Kaur, wife of former CM Amarinder Singh, won from Patiala (Rural) while Jeet Mohinder Sidhu of Akali Dal managed to win Talwandi Sabo. Significantly, AAP which won the Patiala Lok Sabha seat lost its deposit.
Bihar saw RJD win in Rajnagar, Chhapra and Mohiuddinnagar, ally JD(U) in Jale and Parbatta with Congress wresting Bhagalpur from BJP. BJP won Narkatiaganj, Banka, Hajipur, and Mohania.
In Karnataka, the ruling Congress dented the saffron confidence by winning two of the three seats, including the BJP stronghold of Bellary. BJP won 17 of the 28 LS seats in the southern state.
BJP suffered a setback in MP when Congress wrested Bahoriband from it but the ruling party won two others.