A Loss Well Played

The BJP’s bypoll defeat in Visavadar may look like a setback, but is in fact a cunning move in a longer game to fracture the opposition ahead of the 2027 Gujarat Assembly polls.

GUJARAT

In India’s most saffron-saturated state, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) defeat in a by-election normally signals seismic political tremors. That the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won Visavadar, a Patidar stronghold in Gujarat’s Junagadh district, with a margin of over 17,500 votes has thus sparked no shortage of commentary about the BJP’s supposed vulnerability. But seasoned watchers of Gujarat politics would do well to read between the electoral lines. Far from being a sign of weakness, the BJP’s ‘loss’ may well be a calculated concession - a Trojan horse designed to induce a premature alliance between two uneasy opposition parties, the Congress and AAP, and in the process, bleed them both.

On the surface, the AAP’s win is significant. Gopal Italia, its controversial former state president, has clawed back a seat his party originally won in 2022, only to see the victorious MLA, Bhupendra Bhayani, defect to the BJP. Italia’s win also marks the party’s first flicker of resurgence since its drubbing in the Delhi Assembly elections earlier this year. Yet the BJP’s loss was not unexpected. Bhayani, the original defector, was not fielded. The BJP instead ran Kirit Patel, a relatively low-profile candidate in a region where local loyalties run deep. Against him, AAP fielded a polarising but high-visibility leader in Italia.

Italia’s candidacy was a gift in disguise. A known firebrand with little cross-community appeal, his victory, while headline-worthy, brings with it a curious political arithmetic. By handing a seat back to a leader best known for viral videos and agitation politics (but not effective governance), the BJP has ensured that the AAP remains just relevant enough to be a nuisance, but not formidable enough to truly threaten its grip over Gujarat. In fact, the win may compel AAP and Congress to enter into a seat-sharing arrangement for the 2027 assembly elections - an arrangement almost certainly destined to be fraught.

The two parties, after all, are natural rivals masquerading as reluctant partners. Since its Gujarat debut, the AAP has grown at Congress’s expense, not the BJP’s. In 2022, the AAP’s vote share was drawn largely from constituencies where Congress once held sway, especially among SC-ST blocs and sections of the Patidar community. By entering Gujarat as an ‘alternative,’ the AAP undermined the Congress’s claim to be the sole national opposition.

The Congress, for its part, remains in disarray. Despite launching a statewide ‘Sangathan Srijan Abhiyan’ to revive its grassroots apparatus, factionalism continues to hobble the party. A prospective alliance with AAP, especially after the latter’s posturing in 2022, could demoralise loyalists and further erode its social base.

Beneath the electoral theatre lies the BJP’s longer stratagem, say observers. The saffron party, which has ruled Gujarat uninterrupted since 1995, knows that its biggest strength lies not merely in winning votes, but in shaping the terrain of contest. It has long specialised in forcing opposition parties into reactive positions: engineering defections, exploiting rival egos and amplifying internal contradictions. The Visavadar bypoll fits neatly into this playbook. It allows the BJP to temporarily cede space to a lesser adversary while ensuring that the broader anti-BJP front remains divided and incoherent.

There is also the matter of optics. AAP’s hyperbolic claims that “only it can defeat the BJP in Gujarat” following this single-seat win will not escape the ruling party’s notice. Such overreach only adds to internal Congress frustrations, thereby accelerating the very fragmentation the BJP thrives on. So, while Visavadar may seem like a crack in the BJP’s Gujarat edifice, it is in reality a pressure valve that is calculated, timed and deliberately opened to destabilise its opponents. The real battle, as always, is not the seat at hand, but the narrative that follows after. On that front, the BJP remains leagues ahead.