BJP on top

THE BJP’s clean sweep of the Hindi heartland states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh is a big shot in the arm for the party as well as Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The ruling party at the Centre not only countered anti-incumbency in MP but also wrested Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh from the Congress. The losses in these three states are a big setback to the Congress, whose position as the spearhead of the Opposition bloc INDIA has now weakened considerably. The saving grace for the grand old party is its superb victory in Telangana, where it defeated the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi.

The Chhattisgarh outcome is a pleasant surprise for the BJP, which had gambled by targeting popular Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel over alleged corruption and favouritism. Baghel was expected to lead the Congress to a second successive victory, but the BJP’s ploy upset his applecart. Banking on Modi’s ‘guarantees’ was another gamble that paid off for the saffron party in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and MP. In contrast, the Congress’ caste card found few takers. The running feud between Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot cost the Congress dear in Rajasthan, while the party has never recovered from the twin shocks in MP — Jyotiraditya Scindia’s defection to the BJP and the collapse of the Kamal Nath government in 2020.

The Congress had won the Assembly elections in these three states in 2018, but the results in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls were strikingly different. The BJP needs to resist the temptation of extrapolating a national trend from the state poll results. It is back to the drawing board for the Congress, which must realise that expanding its footprint in south India — the party had ousted the BJP from power in Karnataka earlier this year — is not enough to pose a strong challenge to the Modi juggernaut in the parliamentary battle, which is barely five months away. It will be equally tough for INDIA to regroup and offer voters a credible alternative to the BJP.