SAFFRON TSUNAMI

The Congress has yet to crack the puzzle that is MP as defections in its ranks and the BJP's Modi narrative consistently deny the party space in the state

- Rahul Noronha

IN the Lok Sabha election held in 1984, shortly after the assassination of party leader and then prime minister Indira Gandhi in October, the Congress won all 40 seats in united Madhya Pradesh. Four decades on, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seems to have returned the favour this summer, winning all of the state's 29 seats, the number it was left after Chhattisgarh was carved out of it in 2000. The Congress didn't manage to win any of the 27 seats it contested (Khajuraho was given to ally Samajwadi Party but the candidate's nomination was rejected, while the Congress's Indore candidate withdrew his nomination and defected to the BJP).

MP-often called the laboratory of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the "ideological fountainhead" of the BJPhas seen a gradual but consistent rise in the dominance of the saffron party, beginning from the 1989 Lok Sabha election.