Much like the Congress party in the 50s and 60s, the BJP has become the default party of governance
Prime Minister Narendra Modi waves to the gathering during an event celebrating the party’s performance in assembly elections across four states and one union territory, at the party headquarters in New Delhi. (Pic: PTI)
It’s easy to be swept up. It’s easy to talk up the significance of this round of Assembly elections. After all, polls in five geographies—four states of the Union and one union territory—amount to a virtual mini-referendum. Think about it: one in five Indian voters has spoken across twenty-one per cent of Lok Sabha constituencies. And who would have thought these voters would show up in record numbers only to topple three chief ministers in one day? The carnage is unprecedented.
The I.N.D.I.A. bloc has borne the brunt. Even in Tamil Nadu, where it was favoured to win, it lost to a rank outsider. A Tollywood superstar, in a harkening back to an age that two generations of Tamils don’t remember. The BJP-led NDA has spared itself the ignominy that the I.N.D.I.A. bloc has arguably inflicted upon itself. The BJP has returned to power in Assam; its ally has dodged anti-incumbency in Puducherry.
But it is in the veritable Eden Gardens of Indian politics—Bengal—that the BJP has scored a polity-resetting triumph. After “Anga” and “Kalinga”, it is “Banga” that has fallen under the BJP’s sway, not long after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The BJP has significantly and dramatically expanded its footprint in the East, reshaping the opposition’s balance of power.
A weakened I.N.D.I.A. bloc now stands to embolden the Centre, recalibrate coalition arithmetic ahead of national elections in 2029, and shift the ideological narrative. Let’s break this down.
DEFAULT PARTY OF GOVERNANCE
The BJP’s win in Bengal, against the formidable force of nature that is Mamata Banerjee, catapults it into an orbit of its own. Much like the Congress party in the 50s and 60s, the BJP has become the default party of governance.
The NDA, in some shape or form, governs states representing approximately 75% of India’s population. That the NDA sprawls over so much of India is particularly striking because political competition has increased significantly as democratic contestation has deepened since the 50s and 60s. The politics of “Mandal”, and then “Kamandal”, ensured a fractured polity. That the BJP has been able to substantially transcend the jagged fault lines of caste and creed is the dramatic electoral twist in polls that, for 25 years, predictably threw up fractured mandates. This transcendence is not a rejection of identity politics but its reconfiguration at a broader level.
OPPOSITION ‘MUKT’ BHARAT NEXT?
Yet, this expanding footprint is not without consequence. Though it has captured power through a thorough examination at the ballot, the BJP’s consolidation also reduces the ground for alternative options.
For a while, it appeared that parties that didn’t belong to either the Congress or BJP-led coalitions were going to contain the BJP. These regional identities also represented the diversity of the Indian political tradition. But even these parties have now proven to be susceptible to the BJP’s electoral juggernaut. The AAP, RJD, BJD, and SP have been swept aside. Several others are barely hanging on. The lack of alternatives holds consequence. The narrowing of choice could ossify politics, leading to complacency in government or even rule by fiat.
NEW GEOGRAPHIES = ELASTIC IDEOLOGY?
But this isn’t an inevitability. A growing BJP could also be less monochromatic.
As the BJP establishes itself in new geographies, it must acquire the capacity to govern more diverse social coalitions. This will mean reconciling its ideological impulses with different cultural sensibilities. How it balances this will determine its evolution as a political party.
So far, the BJP has managed to absorb leaders from different political persuasions, and govern new states, without compromising on its core Hindu-nationalist philosophy. But what if this flexibility at the margins begins to dilute its core? It has happened before with other parties. Is the BJP immune?
HINDU CONSOLIDATION
Yes. At least in the near term. The data tells us that the Bharatiya Janata Party won in West Bengal on the back, though not exclusively, of Hindu consolidation. Since the 2024 Lok Sabha jolt, the BJP has been on message. Its leading lights have warned Hindus: “Batoge toh katoge”.
The provocative slogan, proclaimed in varying tones, has acquired an electoral life of its own after the win in Bengal. Expect the party to double down in the lead-up to next year’s Uttar Pradesh assembly poll. The poll in the so-called cradle of Indian democracy will test whether this consolidation can be sustained and whether it can endure without backlash. If it does, the BJP’s dominance will evolve into something more accommodating. The Bengal breakthrough is therefore more than an electoral moment in time.
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