BJP all the way

The BJP juggernaut, which was looking rusty and creaky after the party’s underwhelming show in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, is at its rampaging best once again. And that is ominous news for the Opposition’s INDIA bloc, or whatever is left of it. After its superb victories in Haryana and Maharashtra last year, the BJP has finally captured the Delhi citadel — ending a painfully long wait of over 26 years. It has managed to topple the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), arguably the most promising outfit to have emerged on the Indian political scene in the past decade or so. AAP had decimated the BJP and other rivals in the 2015 and 2020 Assembly elections, but this time it found itself weighed down by anti-incumbency and corruption charges against its top leaders, particularly Arvind Kejriwal. Itself a product of Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement, AAP failed to shake off the graft taint. Moreover, the fledgling party’s decision to go solo instead of joining hands with the Congress proved disastrous. As the voting day neared, Kejriwal’s desperation was palpable: he saw demons everywhere, but ignored the dire need to set his own house in order.

Interestingly, the BJP beat AAP at its own game by offering freebies to women and other key groups of voters. The 2024 Lok Sabha verdict was a wake-up call for the ruling party. It realised that voters simply could not be taken for granted. The BJP shunned its one-size-fits-all strategy and instead focused on a state-specific agenda. It found an unlikely ally in the Congress, a spent force in the Capital that went hammer and tongs at Kejriwal.

The Delhi mandate has triggered an existential crisis for AAP, which now only has Punjab in its kitty. And the BJP, with its well-oiled election-winning machine, will go all out to reverse its fortunes in Punjab as well as West Bengal, two states which have stubbornly resisted Modi’s magic and the saffron surge.