A day after INDIA bloc secured 10 of the 13 seats in the recently held Assembly bypolls across seven states, the Opposition Congress on Sunday predicted a BJP downfall, claiming the saffron party “has a multiple organ failure and it is headed to an ICU”.
“Right after the Lok Sabha elections, we have won 12-13 seats in 4-5 states, clearly indicating that the BJP’s graph has been falling. Had the Lok Sabha elections been organised after 6-8 months, BJP would not have won more than 120 seats…,” senior Congress leader Sandeep Dikshit said.
“For the first time, NDA parties are performing better than BJP in their respective states and BJP is absolutely relying on them… BJP has a multiple organ failure and is failing in multiple states. It is soon headed to an ICU,” he added.
His remarks came after the Opposition parties on Saturday won 10 out of the 13 seats in the assembly bypolls which were held across seven states in a first direct face-off between Congress-led INDIA bloc and the BJP-led NDA.
Congress, TMC, AAP and DMK, which are the constituents of the Opposition’s INDIA bloc at the national level dominated in the assembly bypolls by collectively winning 10 seats. The BJP bagged two seats while an Independent won the remaining seat.
The bypolls were held in West Bengal (4 seats), Himachal Pradesh (3 seats), Uttarakhand (2 seats), Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, and Punjab (1 seat each).
The two seats the BJP won — Amarwara in Madhya Pradesh and Hamirpur in Himachal Pradesh — had Congress turncoats as its candidate and won with a relatively very low margin of votes.
Congress candidate and Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu’s wife, Kamlesh Thakur, has won the assembly by-election from the Dehra constituency by defeating Hoshyar Singh of the BJP.
This was the first time since the Lok Sabha elections that the Congress-led INDIA bloc and the BJP-led NDA were in direct contest with each other.
Meanwhile, BJP leaders have called for a review of the results.
“There are different situations. In a democracy, the decision lies with the people. It (result) needs to be reviewed,” said Chhattisgarh CM Vishnu Deo Sai.