Ruling parties tend to have an advantage in by-elections, but even so the victories of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Srirangam in Tamil Nadu and of the Trinamool Congress in Bongaon and Krishnaganj in West Bengal are stunningly spectacular. For both AIADMK general secretary Jayalalithaa and Trinamool chairperson Mamata Banerjee, the success in the by-elections came in challenging circumstances. Ms. Jayalalithaa, who was disqualified as a member of the Assembly on being convicted by a special court in a corruption case, saw in her party’s decimation of the opposition in Srirangam the strength to defeat the “conspiracies” hatched by political opponents. A setback in Srirangam would have boosted the morale of the opposition in Tamil Nadu, and given rise to claims that the people had lost faith in Ms. Jayalalithaa after her conviction. That the AIADMK candidate, S. Valarmathi, bettered Ms. Jayalalithaa’s victory margin in the previous election was itself a sign that nothing had changed politically in Tamil Nadu in the months after the trial court judgment against her. In the Lok Sabha election last year, the AIADMK, contesting without alliances, had won 37 of the 39 seats in the State. That the legal obstacles have not lowered her stature in the eyes of the voters must have been comforting for Ms. Jayalalithaa, who is trying to get her conviction overturned before the end of the current term of the Assembly in 2016. The opposition parties are even more divided now than they were at the time of the Lok Sabha election, and the AIADMK’s biggest challenge comes not from its political rivals but from the legal cases against her.
Like Ms. Jayalalithaa, Ms. Banerjee is also fighting her way through scams. Several senior Trinamool leaders are under investigation for their role in the Saradha chit fund scam, and Ms. Banerjee is backing them to the utmost politically. Again like Ms. Jayalalithaa, Ms. Banerjee spoke of people having replied to “conspiracies” hatched by the opposition. With the Left parties in disarray in West Bengal, Ms. Banerjee is concentrating her political attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party, accusing its government at the Centre of using the Central Bureau of Investigation for political ends. But while legal setbacks can hurt politically, political victories cannot help with the legal battles in criminal cases. Ms. Jayalalithaa and Ms. Banerjee would have to meet the legal challenges separately. With a little more than a year to go before Tamil Nadu and West Bengal go to the polls, both Ms. Jayalalithaa and Ms. Banerjee are on a good political wicket. That their main worries relate to courts and cases, is a telling commentary on their political supremacy.
