Two states headed to the ballots in Delhi in February when the pandemic was not yet sensed as a hazard in India, and Bihar in October-November when the pandemic displayed a declining tendency in the country. More than 70 Rajya Sabha MPs were selected, several keenly watched Assembly by-elections were held and quite a few local body elections yielded immense interest among people.
ASSEMBLY POLLS
Delhi went to the polls in February for 70 seats of the Assembly. The election was carried against the setting of persistent protests over the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party easily possessed power in Delhi winning 62 seats. It had won 67 in the 2015 Delhi Assembly election.
The BJP enhanced its count from three in 2015 to eight. But the Congress, which led Delhi for three successive spans before a Kejriwal wave dismissed it from an authority, failed to succeed a single seat in the second consecutive Delhi Assembly election. The Congress not only polled less than 5% of votes in Delhi, but 63 of its 66 candidates also lost stakes. Thus, only three Congress nominees got more than 10 percent of the votes ensured by the winning candidates in their constituencies.
BATTLE FOR BIHAR
Bihar went to the ballots in October-November in three stages for 243 assembly seats. The BJP-led NDA emerged winner with 125 seats, three more than the prevalence mark needed to create a government in Bihar. For the first time in 15 years, the BJP evolved as the senior partner in the NDA succeeding more seats than the JDU of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
The rival Mahagathbandhan of the RJD, the Congress, and the Left parties won 110 seats with the RJD’s chief ministerial candidate Tejaswhi Yadav stating electoral wrongdoing during the counting of votes. The RJD occurred as the single-largest party succeeding 75 seats, one more than the BJP. Congress verified to be a vulnerable connection in the union.
RAJYA SABHA POLLS
A total of 74 Rajya Sabha MPs were selected in 2020, at least 16 of them were elected unopposed. An utmost of 12 Rajya Sabha MPs was elected from Uttar Pradesh – all unopposed. The BJP was the main gainer increasing its tally by 12 in the Rajya Sabha taking the NDA closest ever to the majority mark in the house. One member was nominated to the Rajya Sabha this year – ex-Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi. His nomination to the Rajya Sabha was directed to multiple tones and cry with Opposition and critics correlating it with the independence of the judiciary in India.
ASSEMBLY BYPOLLS
States witnessed bypolls due to desertion of MLAs or the demise of the sitting legislators. The by-election to 28 seats of the Madhya Pradesh Assembly was one of the highlights as it was entailed due to a side-switch by 25 Congress MLAs to the BJP which also directed to a shift of government in the state.
When the bypolls were carried out, the BJP won 19 of the competed seats. The Congress succeeded the remaining nine. The BJP that held just one of the seats in Agar constituency in Devas where bypolls were stowed lost that seat to the Congress. In Uttar Pradesh, bypolls were carried out on seven seats. The BJP contained its six seats while the Samajwadi Party retained its own. In Gujarat, the Congress lost all eight seats where bypolls were held to the BJP.
Another major loss for the Congress came in Manipur, where it lost five seats in the bypolls four to the BJP and one to an autonomous candidate. The Congress and JDS lost one seat each they had carried to the BJP in the bypolls that occurred in November. The ruling TRS had won this seat in the 2018 election by a huge margin in Dubbaka in Telangana but lost this seat to the BJP in the bypolls last month. The Congress holds on to its only seat going to bypolls in Haryana and also held one seat in Chhattisgarh from Janata Congress Party of former Chief Minister Ajit Jogi, whose death called for the by-election at Marwahi seat.
LOCAL BODY ELECTIONS
Local body elections made highlights in headlines and the biggest of that was the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) polls. The BJP amazed many and came second in the election results succeeding 48. The ruling TRS won 56, the AIMIM 44, and the Congress 2. The BJP allotted its foremost heads including Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, BJP president JP Nadda and several Union ministers for campaigning in the GHMC polls. They were rivals to Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, the TRS president, and AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi.
Municipal and panchayat elections in Kerala became another talking point with the BJP going “inclusive” in the local body polls. The party fielded more than 600 Christian and Muslim candidates observing to appear as the third political emphasis in next year’s Kerala Assembly election.
The District Development Council (DDC) polls in Jammu and Kashmir are another highlight of 2020. These are the first elections to be held in Jammu and Kashmir since the abrogation of Article 370, bifurcation of the former state, transforming the consequent entities into two Union Territories. The alliance of former J&K chief minister Farooq Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti is also in the competition in the DDC polls.
The Rajasthan panchayat polls that occurred recently were debated widely for jolting the sensation of voting for the obligatory government in Jaipur. The BJP topped the ruling Congress in the panchayat samitis and zila parishads only weeks after the Congress had defeated the mayoral election in Rajasthan.
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