BJP’s 2024 prospects: Challenges loom as Modi’s aura wanes

The rumblings have been there for quite some time, with the Assembly elections in different States tearing off the coat of supremacy that Modi was wearing ever since he became PM in 2014 and also after 2019

Hyderabad: Is the Bharatiya Janata Party jittery as 2024 gets closer? The answer could be yes, which is why the party appears to be thinking of multiple strategies including the One Nation One Election move.

Now the question comes why the BJP, which handsomely won the last two general elections, should be jittery. The answer is simple. The aura of invincibility that Narendra Modi enjoyed in the run-up towards the 2019 general elections has evaporated. The strong probability of a sharp fall in the number of seats (303) it has in the Lok Sabha, indicating the possibility of a coalition government which in turn means the BJP will need more allies, and even worse, the fear of loss, all have combined to give sleepless nights to the saffron party.

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The rumblings have been there for quite some time, with the Assembly elections in different States tearing off the coat of supremacy that Modi was wearing ever since he became PM in 2014 and also after 2019. Rhetoric has been the weapon he uses to cover up, and one classic example was how he declared that the North East was with the BJP in March this year.

Fact is that the BJP could not improve on its tally at all in the North East and even in Tripura, where it managed a single majority, the number of seats had come down from 36 to 32. In Meghalaya and Nagaland, too, the BJP continued being in the government only because of support from the National People’s Party and the Nationalist Democratic People’s Party, though the number of seats for the BJP had remained the same as in 2018, 12 in Nagaland and two in Meghalaya.

Look at the overall picture. In the total seats of 180 in the three North Eastern states of Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya, the BJP won just 46. Apart from losing four in Tripura compared to 2018, in Nagaland, it was a distant number 2 winning just 12 seats out of a total of 60. It had contested in 20 seats. In Meghalaya, it contested in 59 out of 60 seats, and won just two. However, with support from local regional parties, it is in power in all the three States.

Another development that the BJP-supportive national media chose to ignore was that in the assembly by-election at Kasba Peth in Pune, also held in February, BJP lost the seat to the Congress after holding the seat for 28 years. BJP also lost its government in Himachal Pradesh and the Delhi Municipal Corporation which it controlled for 15 years.

Then take a look at the other Assembly elections where the BJP lost even when Modi was in power. It was voted out in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Punjab, Goa and Maharashtra. In Maharashtra, the Shiva Sena had formed a government with support of the Congress, but the BJP engineered a split in the Sena and is now in power, so was the case in Goa too.

In Jharkhand, BJP lost to the JMM-Congress alliance, while in Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala, it has not been able even to taste power.

The Karnataka results came as another nail in the coffin. This was the mother of all defeats, but not just because BJP, which won 104 out of 224 seats in 2019, was forced to settle for just 66. This defeat had much more to it, given Modi’s campaign blitzkrieg ahead of the polls.

According to reports, Modi met over 3,000 people during his seven days in Karnataka, including party workers, professionals, prominent people and Padma awardees to canvas votes, addressed 18 rallies, held a virtual interaction with the entire party cadre, and led six roadshows, three of them in Bengaluru. A defeat after all that was a shocker and though many said it was because the BJP ignored local issues and local leaders, it pointed to the undeniable fact that the name Modi was not working for the BJP anymore, and perhaps, why 2024 is giving BJP the jitters.