The recent triumphant sweep of the Hindi heartland states – Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh – by the BJP has positioned the party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi strongly for the upcoming 2024 Lok Sabha elections. This resounding success not only thwarted anti-incumbency in Madhya Pradesh but also saw the BJP wresting Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh from the Congress. The setback in these key states has significantly weakened the Congress's standing as the leading force in the opposition bloc. However, the party finds solace in its remarkable victory in Telangana, where it defeated the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi.
Chhattisgarh's outcome stands out as a pleasant surprise for the BJP, having strategically targeted Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel over alleged corruption and favoritism. Despite Baghel's anticipated second successive victory, the BJP's tactics upset the electoral dynamics. The saffron party's reliance on Prime Minister Modi's assurances proved successful in Chhattisgarh, as well as in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Conversely, the Congress's emphasis on caste politics failed to resonate. The internal strife between Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot proved costly in Rajasthan, and the party has struggled to recover from the setbacks in Madhya Pradesh – Jyotiraditya Scindia's defection to the BJP and the collapse of the Kamal Nath government in 2020.
While the Congress emerged victorious in the 2018 Assembly elections in these three states, the landscape shifted significantly in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The BJP must resist overinterpreting state-level trends as national indicators. For the Congress, it's back to the drawing board. The party must acknowledge that expanding its presence in South India, exemplified by its victory in Karnataka earlier this year, does not suffice to present a formidable challenge to the Modi juggernaut in the upcoming parliamentary battle, a mere five months away. Similarly, it is an uphill task for the opposition bloc, INDIA, to regroup and offer voters a credible alternative to the BJP.
