Hyderabad: After Maharashtra, the birthplace of RSS, has slipped through the BJP’s fingers, the party which once ruled over 71 per cent of India, has shrunk to just 40 per cent. In 2017, the BJP with its allies had gained control over a whopping 71 per cent of the national landscape but with the latest loss of a game of chess with Shiv Sena as well as NCP, it has been reduced to 40 per cent in 2019.
The BJP which was holding power in only seven state assemblies, namely Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Goa and Arunachal Pradesh, in 2014, took a forward leap in 2018 by grabbing control over 21 states.
The Modi wave, whose credit was given to BJP’s Chanakya Amit Shah, swept across the nation, splashing a large chunk of India’s map with saffron colour. Except for Tamil Nadu (AIADMK), Kerala (LDF), Karnataka (Congress), Mizoram (Congress), Punjab (Congress), Odisha (BJD), West Bengal (Trinamool Congress) and Telangana (TRS), all the other states were either directly or indirectly ruled by the BJP. The BJP led NDA lost Andhra after its alliance with TDP broke off. It lost Jammu and Kashmir due to President’s Rule in December 2018last.
As the graph rose from 7 states in 2014 to 13 in 2015, 15 in 2016, 19 in 2017 and then 21 in 2018, it took a halt and then began to move downwards. Though BJP made inroads in the most unexpected corners of the country, such as Mizoram, it started losing in its bastions like Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. And now the BJP has been reduced to 17 states.
Though the Modi government made a historic comeback in the Lok Sabha elections in 2019, the BJP is biting the dust in state-level politics. The BJP top brass appears to be discussing possibilities of stemming the fall and regain at least some of the lost grounds.