SAFFRON FEELS THE SHRINK

Jharkhand becomes the fifth state to slip out of the BJP’s grip in the past one year, calling into question Modi-Shah’s regional strategy. Can the party arrest the slide?

- Kaushik Deka & Amitabh Srivastava

On May 23, riding high on the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a nationalistic narrative driven by India’s airstrike on terrorist camps in Pakistan’s Balakot, the BJP won the Lok Sabha election with a massive tally of 303, up from 282 five years ago. Its main rival, the Congress, got only 52 seats, marginally better than in 2014 (44 seats), giving the BJP’s dream of a ‘Congressmukt Bharat (India sans Congress)’ a wing.

Seven months on, the BJP appears to be going downhill, barely securing a second term in Haryana with the help of a new ally, the Jannayak Janata Party, but dramatically losing power in Maharashtra last month. And now, the ouster in Jharkhand, a state the party had swept in the Lok Sabha election, with a 51 per cent vote share. What makes the loss even more humiliating is outgoing chief minister Raghubar Das’s defeat from the Jamshedpur East constituency.

DIMINISHING FOOTPRINT

In the past one year, the BJP has lost five states that account for 127 Lok Sabha seats and 51 Rajya Sabha seats— a sign that the party’s grip on regional politics is slipping. Mid-2018, the BJP and its allies ruled 20 states, occupying 70 per cent of the country’s political space. Following the Jharkhand debacle, this has shrunk by half, leaving the party in power in 15 states only. Today, one can drive from Rajasthan to West Bengal without having to cross a BJP-ruled state.