Narendra Modi’s party sweeps in north and central India
The political divide between India’s poor heartland and richer south has got even starker. In five state polls, the last big tranche ahead of a general election due by next May, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won emphatic victories in northern Rajasthan and in the central states of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. In both Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, India’s ruling party thereby unseated its main national rival, the Congress party, dashing its hopes of a revival in the Hindi-speaking “cow belt” where around half a billion Indians live.
In the south, meanwhile, Congress swept to victory in the prosperous state of Telangana (whose capital is the technology hub of Hyderabad). The incumbent party there is a regional one, not the bjp. Even so, the Hindu nationalist party’s failure to make inroads in Telangana will compound its loss to Congress last May in the neighbouring state of Karnataka (home to Bangalore, another tech hub). It is another indication of the limited appeal to southerners of the BJP’s Hindu-centric ideology.
Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh are by far the most populous of the five states that went to the polls. Together they command 54 of the 543 seats in the lower house of the national parliament. Neither of the big national parties was expected to do well in the small, north-eastern state of Mizoram, which will announce results on Monday. The election there has been a close-fought battle between two regional parties.
The state results are excellent news for Narendra Modi, the bjp prime minister. In power since 2014, Mr Modi is campaigning for a third term on a platform that combines the BJP’s “Hindutva” ideology, which pushes a Hindu-first view of Indian culture and identity, with a pledge to transform India into a developed country by 2047, the centenary of its independence. BJP leaders credit Mr Modi with India’s recent strong economic growth and progress on infrastructure development. They also praise him for taking action against corruption and other problems long neglected by Congress-led previous regimes.
“The results in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan indicate that the people of India are firmly with politics of good governance and development,” Mr Modi wrote on X (Twitter, as was) on Sunday. He also predicted support for the BJP would grow in Telangana. Despite its failure to win the state, the bjp’s vote-share there was roughly double the 7% it won in Telangana’s previous state election, in 2018.
Conversely, the election results are a bitter blow to Mr Modi’s opponents. They accuse him of undermining India’s secular constitution by pandering to Hindus, who represent 80% of the population, and fomenting discrimination and violence against minorities, especially Muslims, who account for about 14%. Critics allege that Mr Modi’s government has eroded judicial independence, muzzled local media and used law enforcement agencies and other state resources to harass many political opponents. (The government denies doing any of that.)
Mr Modi’s opponents worry, too, that he wants to change the constitution to giving more power to the executive branch. A revision of electoral boundaries, due in 2026, would probably make it relatively easy for him to make such changes. It could see the lower house expanded to around 753 seats, with most new ones going to northern states, where the BJP is popular. Mr Modi has also proposed holding simultaneous national and state elections, which many see as another move to centralise power.
The five state polls are not straightforwardly predictive of next year’s general election result. In 2018 Congress won control of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, then was trounced in all three states in the general election that followed. Yet given that the bjp tends to do better in national than state-level polls, these latest results look desperately worrying for the bjp’s opponents. The party’s outperformance nationally is based on the popularity of Mr Modi, whose image as a strong, charismatic leader is sustained by the BJP’s formidable media operation. It ensures the prime minister gets overwhelmingly positive coverage via most local-language television channels and newspapers, as well as on social media.
The BJP performed especially strongly in India’s north and northwest in the general election held in 2019 and probably needs to do so again next year to win another majority. That is because India’s south seems to be “out of bounds” to it, says Rahul Verma of the Centre for Policy Research, a Delhi-based think-tank. “With this kind of performance, the BJP is sitting in a much sweeter spot than it was a couple of months ago and the road for Congress has become very, very difficult.”
Congress, chastened by its failure to dent the BJP’s support base, will now face pressure to cede more ground in negotiations over strategy and candidate selection with the other 27 opposition parties that it joined in July in a coalition called the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance, or INDIA. It is also increasingly unlikely that the alliance will accept as its prime ministerial candidate a Congress leader, such as 53-year-old Rahul Gandhi (whose father, grandmother and great-grandfather were all Indian prime ministers). Mr Gandhi said in a posting on X that he accepted Indians’ latest bruising verdict on his party. “The ideological battle will continue,” he added.
The BJP’s victories in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh were due, in large part, to Congress’s internal divisions. The government of Rajasthan, which Congress had controlled since 2018, had a good record, particularly on delivering welfare programs. But its rule was marred by a bitter two-year-long power struggle between the chief minister, 72-year-old Congress stalwart Ashok Gehlot, and his ambitious 46-year-old deputy, Sachin Pilot.
In Chhattisgarh, again governed by Congress since 2018, the party’s administration was also undermined by feuding between the chief minister and one of his deputies, as well as by a failure to fulfil election promises to the state’s tribal community. In Madhya Pradesh, Congress’ failure to exploit dissatisfaction with the incumbent BJP government was attributed largely to its selection of 77-year-old Kamal Nath, another Congress veteran, as its candidate for chief minister. He had taken that post after Congress won the last state election in 2018 but his government collapsed 15 months later after another local Congress leader defected to the BJP with two dozen other state-assembly members.
Beyond such local factors the BJP’s success was also down to superior election strategies, party organisation and message discipline, political analysts say. In Madhya Pradesh, Mr Modi’s party worked hard to promote an image of collective leadership, sending several national figures to campaign and largely sidelining its 64-year-old chief minister, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who may now be replaced. That helped to offset public frustration with Mr Chouhan’s leadership and focus attention on Mr Modi. The BJP also concentrated efforts on women voters, who have been turning out in larger numbers in recent elections. Congress may take heart from its victory in the south. But it has little to be encouraged by elsewhere. ■