bhopal

Updated: Aug 17, 2017 17:21 IST

What’s victory without a loser to gloat over? A hollow one, at best.

Both the Congress and the ruling BJP found themselves unable to rejoice over the elections to 43 civic bodies in Madhya Pradesh, the results of which were declared on Wednesday, even though there was some reluctant celebration.

The Congress should ideally have been buoyant, given that its tally went up by nearly 100% as compared to previous elections. It bagged 15 urban bodies, showing a gain of seven valuable seats. However, its happiness was tempered by the fact that most of these victories were achieved at the cost of independent candidates and parties other than its main political nemesis – the BJP.

The final tally of the saffron party showed only a marginal fall from 26 seats to 25.

The results were declared a day before BJP chief Amit Shah lands in Bhopal for a three-day visit -- the first time a party national president stays at a state capital for three days. Shah will have meetings with party MPs, MLAs, office-bearers and others, and is expected to do some stern talking ahead of state elections next year.

“It is mainly time for four leaders- chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, state BJP president Nandkumar Singh Chauhan, general secretary in charge Suhas Bhagat and party’s state affairs in charge Vinay Sahasrabuddhe”, said a senior party leader .

The electoral contest had come immediately after the farmer agitation in June, when five protesters were killed in police firing at Mandsaur. Though the Congress had hoped to reap rich dividends from the popular unrest, the results show that turning the tables on the BJP still remains a distant dream.

Dinesh Gupta, senior journalist and political analyst, said the Congress can still hope to depose the Chouhan government in the 2018 assembly elections if it shrugs off its complacency and goes about putting its house in order. “For the BJP, it (the electoral results) is a wake-up call. The party must take the anti-incumbency factor into account and use the rest of its time in power to do some damage-control,” he added.

A small consolation for the Congress came from its victory at Shashabad in Vidisha district, the home turf of chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, currently represented by external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj in the Lok Sabha. The party also won the Balaghat and Dindori seats, supposed strongholds of agriculture minister Gaurishankar Bisen and food and civil supply minister Omprakash Dhruve.

However, even that was negated by the BJP’s victories in a number of Congress-held constituencies.

State Congress president Arun Yadav preferred to put up a brave front, stating that the party was “satisfied” with the results. Equally unwilling to send out the wrong message amid party chief Amit Shah’s visit to Bhopal, state BJP president Nandkumar Singh Chauhan also lost no time in trumpeting the party’s victories in the civic body polls. He attributed the party’s electoral success to chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s charismatic leadership.

A lot was at stake in the elections for Chouhan, who led the party campaign from the front by addressing three dozen public meetings in a period of one week. However, the BJP’s 25-seat win shows that the electorate in about one-third of the seats did not repose their faith in him.