Why Modi And BJP's Trajectory Is Heading North After The 2019 General Elections?

The assembly results hold long-term lessons for both the ‘nationalist’ BJP and a top-heavy, clueless Congress

- Bhavna Vij Aurora

Amid all the clamour of a mini election season and its aftermath—the expected and the surprising—we may forget that a decade is soon coming to a close in Indian life and politics. Quite a decade too, one that made all the noise of an epoch turning. For much of it, looming over centre stage was one man. Narendra Modi: the cause of ecstasy for some, of antagonism for others, and colossus-like for both.

Also on stage, partly in the shadows, is a lady who had ceded centrestage to Modi. Sonia Gandhi had owned a good part of the previous decade, running a near-regency, succeeding against good odds. Now she’s back as Congress president, returning from semisanyas, a desperate holding operation to fill an apparent leadership vacuum left behind by a petulant Rahul Gandhi. After a partial referendum offered by the results of two assembly elections and a clutch of bypolls, how does it stack up for them?