In India, Narendra Modi’s party wins a test regional election

2023-12-04 00:42:44
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, flanked by Defense Minister Rajnath Singh (left), BJP President Jagat Prakash Nadda (centre) and Home Minister Amit Shah (right), during celebrations following the BJP victory in a regional test poll, at the party headquarters in New Delhi, December 3, 2023. AP

The party of Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, emerged victorious in the regional elections held on Sunday, December 3. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won three of the four Indian states that went to the polls in November to renew their local assemblies. The Hindu nationalist, in power for almost ten years, did not hesitate to describe his results as“historical” and of ” unprecedented “.

A few months before the legislative elections scheduled for spring 2024, this performance galvanizes the supporters of the Prime Minister who is preparing to run for a third consecutive term at the head of the country. BJP activists, present at the party headquarters in New Delhi on Sunday evening, cheered their leader, all smiles, and threw rose petals in his path.

The results of regional and national elections are not necessarily correlated but these local elections give an idea of ​​the political temperature in this country of 1.4 billion inhabitants. The BJP appears to be the big winner of the consultation, to the detriment of the opposition, represented by the Congress party. Hindu nationalists won Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, two states hitherto ruled by the Congress. They also remained at the head of Madhya Pradesh, where they came well ahead, defying predictions.

These three states in northern India, in the Hindi-speaking belt of the country, are particularly receptive to the BJP’s ideological project, which promotes the superiority of Hindus who represent 80% of the population. Their political weight is considerable and the “BJP’s national electoral dominance rests on its strong base” in India’s Hindi-speaking north, writes Nalin Mehta, a researcher at the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore.

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Alliance of 28 opposition parties

During this campaign, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as usual, did not hesitate to travel to different states to support his party’s candidates. His great rival and fierce opponent, Rahul Gandhi, as well as other Congress figures, did the same to try to convince voters. The two men campaigned on social themes, promising direct state aid for the poorest or even jobs in a country undermined by youth unemployment.

While the Congress can rejoice in its victory in the southern state of Telangana hitherto ruled by a regional party, the results as a whole are widely seen as a defeat for it. “The Congress hoped to do much better but it lost two states that it had wrested from the BJP in 2018, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, and this gives a real boost to the party of Narendra Modi and improves its position for 2024”confirms Rahul Verma, political analyst at the Center for Policy Research, a think tank based in New Delhi.

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