In just five short months, the momentum in Indian politics has shifted dramatically. Following the BJP-led NDA’s underwhelming performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, questions were raised about its durability and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pan-national acceptability. Today, however, it is the opposition INDIA bloc that is looking distinctly fragile.
The reason for the dramatic shift is a series of unexpected electoral reversals suffered by the INDIA bloc. The most significant of these setbacks occurred in Maharashtra, the second most electorally consequential state in the Indian Union.
By handing the NDA a mammoth victory, Maharashtra’s voters have given the alliance a pretext to dismiss the Lok Sabha election jolt as an aberration. A reversal triggered more by a “fake narrative” spun by a desperate opposition than any discernible anti-incumbency.
In Maharashtra, the BJP has not only smashed a five-decade-old electoral record, but it has also come agonisingly close to winning the election on its own steam. The BJP, which was the central pole holding up the NDA tent in Maharashtra, will take satisfaction from the fact that it has been able to reunite its coalition of disparate castes.
While many will try to blot the victory by insinuating that the BJP communalised the election to consolidate Hindus with its ‘Ek Hain Toh Safe Hain’ slogan, the truth lies—as always—somewhere in between.
If a catch-all religion-based invocation to unity could, by itself, bring disparate elements in Hindu society together, would the BJP have fallen short of the majority mark in the Lok Sabha election?
The fact is that the BJP has been better able to present itself as the emissary of “political nationalism and economic welfarism”. While the manner of its victory may be a fascinating case study for psephologists, to the BJP it is but a stepping stone to the validation it needs, to push ahead with its governance agenda.
Every party of governance needs to know that the public believes in its vision. The landslides in Haryana, Jammu and Maharashtra are a signal to the NDA that it can pursue transformational political and economic reforms. While the NDA gets a shot in the arm, the results constitute a potentially debilitating setback to the INDIA bloc. Can the Opposition alliance hold if there are lingering doubts over its linchpin, the Congress party’s political adequacy?
Those speaking in defence of the Congress may well point to the party’s success in Jharkhand where the INDIA bloc won a handsome mandate. But this is to miss the point completely. In almost every election the Congress has won against the BJP, barring two rare exceptions Himachal and Karnataka, the party has been pulled along by a powerful regional party.
More reversals of the type witnessed in Maharashtra will only bring the INDIA bloc members to view their Congress cohort as a liability —if they don’t already. Would this prompt a decoupling from the Congress? Watch this space.
