Elections in India: key takeaways

As expected, the Modi-led hardline Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has won four out of the five state assembly elections and has succeeded to retain power in Uttar Pradesh (UP), Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has won in Punjab.

In UP, the combination of PM Modi and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has worked well for the BJP. Yogi has become the only chief minister in UP to retain power and won reelection in the last 37 years. This simple fact is enough to show how important this victory is for the BJP.

Many hardline reactionary Hindu groups believe that PM Modi is laying the foundations for a Hindu state in India, but it will be reactionary leaders like Yogi who will realise this dream. This victory has cemented the position of CM Yogi in not only the BJP but also its ideological wing, the RSS.

The ruling party has won 255 seats in the 403-member assembly. It won 32 out of 60 seats in Manipur, 47 out of 70 seats in Uttarakhand, and 20 out of 40 seats in Goa.

It lost a total of 57 seats, as compared with the 2017 elections. The main opposition party in UP, the Samajwadi Party (SP), did make some ground and won 111 seats. Even though it won 64 more seats than in 2017 elections, it was not enough to stop the BJP from retaining power.

But the BJP failed to make inroads into Punjab where AAP trounced all the other parties. It could only manage to win two seats in the Punjab Assembly. In 2017, the BJP won three seats in the province. The rise of AAP in Punjab filled the political vacuum created by the waning popularity of the Congress.

The election results in Punjab clearly show that in the presence of a viable alternative, the BJP is not the preferred political choice for many Indians. We have seen this in West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and a few other states in the last couple of years.

But in those states where regional parties are not strong and the support for the Congress had eroded, the BJP has taken full advantage of that political vacuum and established its strong base. The BJP is not just playing to it strengths, but also exploiting the weaknesses of its opponents.

For example, in UP, the BJP won the elections despite the fact that the Yogi government performed miserably during the Covid-19 pandemic. The unemployment rate is high and rising inflation is really hurting the people. But still the BJP managed to win with a majority in the state. The BJP knew well that Muslim voters are not going to vote for it in big numbers. This is evident from the result of the recently concluded elections. Just eight percent Muslim voters cast their ballot for the BJP. The party is focused on low-caste Hindu communities to increase its support.

The party’s dominance over Uttar Pradesh comes from an alliance of upper castes with all OBCs (the middle castes) except the Yadavs, who are a core vote base of the Samajwadi Party. An overwhelming majority of OBCs voted for the BJP and played an important role in its victory. Women voters, belonging to middle and lower castes, overwhelmingly voted for the BJP.

Such events prove that the Indian ruling party has successfully increased its support in low and middle caste Hindu communities across the country. It is also important to mention that the BJP is rallying support among lower castes through its Hindutva agenda and Hindu identity. The RSS network is significantly helping the BJP to reach out to these poor and most-neglected communities. On the other hand, the SP, led by former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, just concentrated heavily on Muslim and Yadav voters to win in the state. This strategy did not prove to be good enough to defeat the BJP. The SP failed to win the support of middle caste Hindus, and thus lost the elections.

The Congress failed to retain power in Punjab as the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) swept the elections in the state. AAP has won 92 out of the 117 seats in the Punjab Assembly.

AAP’s victory in Punjab was so dominant that all the big guns of Punjab politics bit the dust against the lesser known AAP candidates. Three former chief ministers and the sitting chief minster lost the elections. Former cricketer and Congress Punjab Chief Navjot Singh Sidhu also lost the elections and came third in his Amritsar constituency.

However, the staggering victory of AAP in Punjab was overshadowed by the victory of the BJP in other four states including the key battleground state of UP, where AAP failed to win a single seat.

Modi is happy and so is the Sangh Parivar because UP is the most populous Indian state and send most number of parliamentarians (80) to the Indian parliament – ‘Lok Sabha’. The iron grip on UP and some other larger states in the cow belt is key for the BJP and Modi to win the third term in the 2024 general elections.

The election results have clearly shown that the BJP is still a dominant political force in India. Its anti-Muslim Hindutva agenda is still popular in different sections of the Indian population.

If the opposition parties in India fail to form a united front comprising all anti-BJP parties including left-wing parties, the BJP has a fair chance of winning the 2024 elections. The Modi-led ruling party is waging an ideological war in India. The opposition needs to counter this with clear alternate ideology and an economic programme.

It was another disappointing day for the grand old party, the Congress, which suffered the heaviest defeat of its electoral history in UP. This state was used to be the stronghold of the Congress, but in this election the party managed to win only two seats.

What was even more disappointing to see was that the Congress was also routed in Punjab as it could win only 18 seats there. The Congress leadership seems clueless about overcoming the political and organisational crisis the party has been facing since the rise of Modi and the BJP. On the other hand, the ruling party continues to take the advantage of a weak Congress and the absence of a viable alternate at the national level.

The writer is a freelance journalist.