Clear signal as Jats, Muslims join forces

New Delhi: It was ultimately the win of “Ganna” over “Jinnah” in Kairana! The crucial bypoll results close on the heels of Gorakhpur and Phulpur not merely indicated that a united Opposition could emerge as a major hurdle for the saffron juggernaut, but the coming together of Jats and Muslims after the Muzffarnagar riots sent out a signal that the electorate was in a mood to reject attempts to polarise votes along communal lines.

Things were also not looking up for Nitish Kumar in Bihar as the JD(U) lost the Jokihat Assembly bypoll to Lalu Yadav’s RJD. Though the results of the bypolls in four parliamentary and 10 Assembly seats were announced on Thursday, the Kairana verdict remained the centre of attention as it was a lab test for the combined Opposition in a given state or a given constituency versus BJP on the other side. Faced with a formidable Opposition in the combination of the BSP, SP and RLD, the BJP pulled out all stops, including the infamous invocation of Jinnah by Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath, which was countered ably by RLD leader Jayant Chowdhary, who said: “Ganna (sugarcane) mattered in the sugar belt of western UP, not Jinnah”.

Like in Gorakhpur and Phulpur, the victory for the Opposition candidate in Kairana was also a decisive one with a sizeable margin. The BJP had won the Kairana parliamentary seat by a margin of 2.4 lakhs in 2014.

Kairana was also the epicentre of the “Hindu exodus” theory.

It might be recalled that the key to BJP wins in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls as well as the 2017 Assembly polls had been the Jats, who backed the party to the core.

Thus the coming together of Jats and Muslims in Kairana spells doom for the Bharatiya Janata Party as it shows that the politics of polarisation might not work in the run-up to the 2019 general election.

A desperate BJP had even fielded Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who launched an expressway to campaign next door to Kairana, taking out a roadshow.

Meanwhile, after losing the Jokihat Assembly seat to the RJD, there were murmurs from the Nitish Kumar-led JD(U), which indicated all was not well as far as the NDA’s relationship with its allies was concerned.

JD(U) national spokesman K.C. Tyagi warned the BJP that the NDA coalition should be made more “cohesive” and that “concerns” raised over issues related to farmers and dalits, as well as the petroleum price rise, should be addressed properly.

Mr Tyagi said the biggest challenge for the Bharatiya Janata Party was in Uttar Pradesh, where two major regional parties — BSP and SP — have come together.