The national capital is the face of a country, an index that points towards the real condition of the people, their hopes and frustrations, and the direction of psyche of the nation. Delhi civic bypolls results are nothing less than an evidence of the chagrin under which the people of Delhi have been reeling for quite some time.
The people have not only totally rejected the BJP, but have served it a humiliating defeat. They rather put four of the five seats into the AAP’s bag, and the fifth to the Congress. It has kindled some new hope for the opposition, and has put the BJP in great distress on the eve of the assembly election for the five politically sensitive states.
The Congress secured victory in Chauhan Bangar. It has given a little hope to the Congress. However, for the BJP, it was all frustrating, because the party had earlier held one of the seats, which it could not manage even to retain.
The results have special significance, for it has come at a time when the Modi government is hell bent on selling large number government assets to private parties, on implementing three farm laws against the wishes of farmers, and on administering the four labour codes against the desire of the working class.
Moreover, by anchoring on communal Hindutva card, the BJP hopes to gain considerably in the forthcoming assembly elections in Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry.
However, the Delhi civic by polls result has come in continuance of the humiliating defeat that it had to face recently in the Punjab civic urban bodies elections. The gain, which came with a loss of 27 seats, in the Gujarat civic bodies election for the BJP can be explained as Gujarati pride that ignored the hardship created by a Gujarati Prime Minister.
Since Delhi is a National Capital Territory, it is a Union Territory directly under the Union Government led by the BJP, of course with an assembly and the state government is led by the Aam Aadmi Party.
The fate of the people of the state is therefore dependent on performance of both the parties in their respective areas, such as law and order or lands under the Central and the development under the state government. It is therefore both the parties tried their best to evoke certain sentiments of the voters against their political incumbents.
The results show that the sentiments of anti-establishment against the AAP did not work. On the other hand the anger of the people worked against the BJP, that suffered humiliating defeat by losing even the seat it had won last time.