BJP faces uphill battle in state polls amid fading popularity
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party may lose ground as opposition bounces back, analysts say
After failing to secure an outright majority in national polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) risks losing more ground in four coming state elections, analysts have said.
Earlier this month, India’s election regulator said polls would be held in the northern state of Haryana, as well as Jammu and Kashmir, between September 18 and October 1, followed by polling in Maharashtra and Jharkhand before the end of the year. The exact dates for the latter two states are yet to be determined.
The chances of victory for Modi’s BJP were uncertain in at least three of the four states – Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, and Maharashtra, analysts said.
The repercussions for the ruling party could be significant, given that it is dependent on coalition partners in the federal government to stay in power.
“Coalition partners will seek to consolidate their leverage over the BJP, but it will all depend on how the BJP performs in the state elections,” said Sandeep Shastri, national coordinator of Lok Niti Network, which studies polls.
The BJP is heavily dependent on two regional parties – Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party and Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal United, for its third term.
The BJP has sought to demonstrate that its power and influence in decision-making remains as strong as before by appointing members of its party to key cabinet posts.
But there are signs that the Modi government’s absolute authority is eroding.
The federal government recently scrapped a controversial proposal to directly appoint bureaucrats to key positions, dubbed as lateral entry, said Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, a political commentator.
Traditionally, senior civil servants have to, following years of diligent service, advance to the upper echelons of governance after being selected for national exams and rigorous training, after which they are assigned to various administrative positions.
Earlier this month, the government also referred a proposed amendment to the Waqf boards – a statutory body that oversees an Islamic endowment of property to be held in trust and used for a charitable or religious purpose – to a parliamentary panel after it was criticised by the opposition Congress party as anti-Muslim.
The party’s concern about the coming polls was evident since voting would not be held all at once, giving Modi, the star campaigner, more time to personally visit each state, Mulkhopadhyay said.
“It defies logic to not have elections in all the four states together,” he said, highlighting that Modi’s government had floated a proposal to hold federal and state elections simultaneously late last year when the BJP appeared poised to consolidate its voter base.
Modi’s BJP had also reclaimed support from the right-wing Hindu organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), reflecting the party’s unease, Mukhopadhyay said, pointing out that former BJP President J.P. Nadda had said the party had become capable of looking after its own needs before losing the federal majority.
The RSS, a cultural and social organisation which has been a mentor to senior BJP leaders, has one of the most extensive networks of cadres in the country. Ram Madhav, a senior RSS functionary had, along with a BJP leader, been appointed to oversee the election campaign in Kashmir, he said.
“The BJP’s competence has been badly exposed. It requires the larger political fraternity of the Sangh Parivar or the Hindu nationalist clan, comprising 40–50 organisations in virtually every sector,” Mukhopadhyay said.
“The BJP has once again turned to RSS, and it shows Modi on his own cannot secure victory,” he said.
Despite the efforts to regain political ground, the party’s biggest test is likely to come in Jammu and Kashmir – the state disputed between India and Pakistan – where Modi’s government revoked its special status in 2019.
State polls will be held for the first time since the decision to scrap the constitution’s Article 370, which earlier gave the province significant autonomy.
The BJP was unlikely to get any seats in the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley, but hoped to muster enough votes from the Hindudominated Jammu area, which could enable it to become a part of a coalition government in the state, Mukhopadhyay said.
A spate of militant attacks in recent months in Jammu by separatist groups, who appear to have shifted their focus from the Kashmir valley because of heavy army presence, could also weigh on the BJP’s performance in the Hindu-dominant region, he said.
The BJP will look to bounce back in Haryana. In 2019, it swept all 10 parliamentary seats in the state, only to cede half of them to the opposition Congress in the most recent national elections.
Analysts said the outlook for the BJP also appeared dim in the western state of Maharashtra, a key battleground that had seen political upheaval following a split in the ranks of two major regional parties, Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party, in the last couple of years.
A faction led by Uddhav Thackeray and veteran politician Sharad Pawar looks set to consolidate significant gains made in the national elections. A BJP alliance won only 17 of the 48 parliamentary seats this year in the state, losing as many as 24 since the last elections in 2019.
The BJP was only expected to win comfortably in the eastern state of Jharkhand, analysts said.
Yashwant Deshmukh, a political commentator, said Modi’s popularity helped the BJP win not only the federal elections but also state elections earlier. In many of the states, local issues were likely to be as important if not more than the prime minister’s connection with voters in the coming elections, he said.
A primary reason for the BJP’s losses in parliamentary elections in key regions boiled down to the poor selection of candidates, some of whom had little or no experience in the areas they were campaigning, he said.
After the national elections, “the opposition will certainly be more aggressive”, he said.
However, BJP’s decline could be attributed more to the improved performance of regional parties aligned with the main opposition Congress party, such as the Samajwadi party in Uttar Pradesh state rather than any marked improvement in the performance of Congress, he said.
The BJP has once again turned to RSS, and it shows Modi on his own cannot secure victory
NILANJAN MUKHOPADHYAY, ANALYST