Jangipur by-election; Congress has somehow saved its face.

Otherwise it’s a mere by election  but the ‘Jangipur Parliamentary Constituency’ gained focus because the seat became vacant as Mr. Pranab Mukherjee, the then Finance Minister of UPA Govt now the President of India, resigned for contesting the Presidential Election and later on his son Abhijit Mukherjee has become the candidate of the ruling party. Political analyzers have another point also to look into, the impact of decisions of reforms taken by UPA Government and the recent political developments among UPA on the voters. The election result somehow saves the face of Congress but it will not give them any relief as in the recent opinion surveys conducted by few media shows that the popularity of Congress is declining.

Jangipur falls in Murshidabad district of West Bengal which is among the few patches in West Bengal where Congress is in good position as in the rest part of the state Congress is a clear third.  

In 2009 Mr. Pranab Mukherjee won the seat with a margin of 128 thousand votes but his son Abhijit has won by a very narrow margin of little over 2 thousand votes. Here it is worthy to be mentioned that the ruling party of West Bengal, All India Trinamool Congress (AITC), did not contest in the election else the result could have been different.  Against the questions of media Abhijit Mukherjee admits that recent price rising related to Diesel, LPG and FDI are among the major causes of sharp fall of margin.

Though in the by election of Jangipur the real political situation of West Bengal is not reflected as All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) did not contest but certainly it carries some indication.

• If the present trend continues it will be very difficult for Congress to retain its seats in West Bengal in the Loksabha Election, 2014.

• Inspite of not increase in its support base CPI(M) will gain.

• Though far away from winning BJP shows a huge lift (comparing 21 thousand votes in the previous election this time BJP gets about 86 thousand votes). If the trend becomes uniform in all over the West Bengal the Left Parties will get slight relief and AITC has something to be anxious about.