Nilanjan MukhopadhyayI Crisis Grows for BJP Amid Setback in Key Byelections

Recent byelection outcomes, where the BJP lost two core strongholds, strongholds (Bihar’s Bankipur and MP’s Datia), while retaining only one (Gujarat’s Manjalpur), with a significant drop in the vote margin, is symptomatic of a larger crisis of identity and core electoral constituency. Never in the past 12 years since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office, have just about 3.7-lakh-odd people scattered across north and west India, who voted in the three constituencies, collectively held out a warning sign to the ruling party. This despite this round of byelections yielding a 1–1–1 division among three distinct political entities in the three seats (one BJP, one Congress and one which possibly holds the genesis of a third front in a state that has been bipolar for decades).

The BJP’s tepid performance in these byelections arises from four factors. The verdicts aren’t just of the constituency, but reflect a larger reality through which the BJP seems unable to navigate its path to success. One, for the past decades, urban, educated, and upper/middle-class voters formed the ideological backbone of the BJP. But recent trends show growing friction, but for different reasons. In Bankipur, a traditional urban BJP stronghold since 1995 (also by the same family), voters showed fatigue over neglected civic infrastructure, unemployment and systemic governance issues.

The byelection was also held in the backdrop of the BJP’s loss of face in the wake of the youth protests in New Delhi and numerous cities, importantly including Patna, within which the Bankipur Assembly segment is located. The resentment at the BJP over recruitment paper leaks, education reforms and job scarcity, which have begun eroding the party’s grip on younger, middle-class voters played a major part in voters’ choices. Quite like the unknown world where the youngsters stepped into when they began first protests in over a decade, voters too decided to go with Prashant Kishor, a political newbie or, in today’s jargon, a startup. Today’s urban voters are increasingly willing to look beyond identity politics if there’s an alternative centred on governance, education and development.

Two, the BJP’s identity crisis stems from its decision to heavily incorporate regional caste engineering, relying on OBC and Dalit outreach, in a bid to expand its social footprint. The BJP’s SOP before 2014 was to maximise support among traditional upper caste voters: Brahmins, Vaishyas and to some Kshatriyas. The party then was also mainly urban; the middle classes were its principal catchment area and it used meritocracy to lay out growth avenues for its cadre. During the 2014 campaign, the BJP realised midway the benefits of playing up Narendra Modi’s OBC status, despite the fact that his caste was added to the caste list late in the 1990s. Over the years, the party’s push to elevate leaders strictly based on caste calculus, such as recent state-level shifts in Bihar, often backfired when voters perceive capability and local reputational integrity being sacrificed for caste arithmetic. In Bankipur, the selections of both the chief minister and party president, Samrat Chowdhary and Nitin Nabin, haven’t exactly resonated among people -- the most glaring evidence being the BJP’s defeat in the constituency earlier represented by the latter. The BJP’s whisper-campaign department laid the blame on Mr Nabin’s door by suggesting that candidate selection was faulty. However, the BJP no longer is a collegial style party and is now a highly centralised structure. State governments are reportedly run by remote control from within the all-powerful Prime Minister’s Office. Likewise, it’s highly improbable that important decisions like candidate selection in crucial polls, like Bankipur or Datia, would have been decided by Mr Nabin. For several years, all kudos are heaped on the central leadership, while blame is allocated to others despite having little voice in decision-making.

The third factor behind this round of results stems from acute cadre discontent and breakdown of internal discipline. In Datia, the denial of the party ticket to the established local leader, former Madhya Pradesh home minister Narottam Mishra, sparked openly violent protests and highway blockades by disgruntled party workers. Even in Bankipur, mid-campaign candidate replacements and reliance on heavy-handed top leadership presence (rather than grassroots cadre connection) signalled an assumption that the brand alone would deliver the seat – a tactic voters resisted.

The fourth or the final factor was previously mentioned, that Indian politics has seen, at least for the moment, the emergence of alternatives beyond the Hindutva versus anti-Hindutva electoral bipolarity. Even though the victors in Bankipur and Datia are different (despite bagging Manjalpur in Gujarat, the significantly reduced margin -- BJP’s vote coming down from 75.85% in 2022 to 67.19% -- is symptomatic that ills afflicting the BJP does not spare Narendra Modi’s home state), the results have exposed the limits of the “double-engine” plank. It is not that the grievances which propelled the youth and students on the streets are the only ones. Quite clearly, several other factors, including inflation, administrative arrogance, and perceived Central overreach, are beginning to shape electoral choices.

While the BJP would like to argue that the results from these three Assembly constituencies are unconnected and merely a tactical setback and not a crisis, it would be prudent for the party to heed the warning. This is quite severe because the notion of “double-engine” is essentially an idea to establish Mr Modi’s political omnipresence. If this has not clicked in a crucial round of byelections after a major protest forced Mr Modi to get a Union minister to resign, it would be politically immature to take the defeats lightly.

The next round of major state elections is scheduled for early 2027 in the politically most important Uttar Pradesh, besides Punjab and Uttarakhand. If it becomes necessary to advance these polls because of the start of the Census operations and the Kumbh Mela, scheduled in Haridwar from mid-January, the time available for the BJP to set its house in order is even lesser. The party’s situation is not enviable at the moment, with the Ram Mandir donation and land scams still fresh in the minds of people who will only get restive if the list of the accused remains restricted to local officials. Additionally, the BJP is wracked by vertical divide in UP: this could spill over to the hill state too, with the governor, Anandiben Patel, recently mounting a not so veiled criticism of chief minister Yogi Adityanath. It would be important to keep track of counter-measures that Prime Minister Modi is sure to mount over the next few weeks as the verdicts from UP and other states, will begin paving the road to the 2029 Lok Sabha elections.

There will never be a dull day here onwards.

Author-journalist Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay’s latest book is The Demolition, The Verdict and The Temple: The Definitive Book on the Ram Mandir Project. He is also the author of Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times. He tweets at @NilanjanUdwin