India state election results deepen BJP dominance, boosting Modi’s mandate

KOCHI - India’s political map is now awash with the saffron of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after it claimed control of another state in recent state elections, bolstering Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s agenda and dominance.

The Hindu nationalist BJP retained Assam in the north-east and Puducherry in the south, but, more strikingly, claimed West Bengal, the challenging eastern state that has long rejected the party.

With this feat, the BJP now rules – or is part of ruling coalitions – in 22 of India’s 28 states and eight federally administered union territories.

“The lotus blooms from the Gangotri to Gangasagar,” Mr Modi exulted, referring to the fount of the mighty river Ganga to where it empties into the sea.  

Voters overwhelmingly opted for change, not only in West Bengal, where they sent the BJP to victory over the ruling Trinamool Congress, but also in the southern states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

In Kerala, the Congress-led alliance defeated the Left alliance, while in Tamil Nadu, actor Joseph Vijay’s newly minted party beat the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK).

All three losing parties had fought the Modi government on some of its policies.

With the political opposition on the back foot, the vote for change locally could bolster the BJP’s national hopes for a fourth straight term at the next general election. In any case, it will have greater leverage to push through some contentious policies at the federal level.

“The wins have given the Modi government and the BJP greater political strength. They are now even stronger favourites for 2029,” Mr Ashok Malik, a partner at The Asia Group, a policy and business advisory group, told The Straits Times. 

The BJP has gone from strength to strength since it came to power in the Indian government in 2014, when it ruled only seven states. During the same period, the once-mighty Congress and its allies have fallen from governing 14 to six, while regional and other parties are down from seven to three today. 

BJP’s growing influence under Modi

The BJP’s deft electioneering machinery has achieved this electoral ascent by continuously adding new groups of voters to its core base of supporters of its Hindu-first ideology, independent policy consultant Tara Krishnaswamy told ST. 

“The BJP deliberately tries to expand its umbrella because it knows that any party’s core base could fossilise. And that anything that doesn’t expand is shrinking,” she said. 

The BJP has brought in Dalits and backward castes, wooed Catholics in Kerala, and even accommodated some sections of Muslims in Bihar.

It pivoted to chanting the name of Lord Murugan in Tamil Nadu, where the deity is revered, rather than focusing on its core nationalistic worship of Lord Ram or Hanuman; eating fish in West Bengal to allay fears of the party banning meat and seafood as it has in other states; and extending targeted tribal outreach in the north-east.

The BJP’s “nimble and agile” approach to building vote banks has entrenched its political dominance, said political observer Yamini Aiyar, along with “legitimate and illegitimate” political strategies that included bottomless political financing, Hindu vote consolidation, the use of corruption cases to engineer defections of local heavyweights, and disempowering sub-national parties it allies with.

The BJP’s gerrymandering through redrawing constituency boundaries in 2023 ensured its re-election in Assam, a state it was already set to win. Although voters were ready to boot out the fierce regional force that ruled West Bengal for 15 years, some election analysts have alleged that the highly contested deletion of millions of voters in West Bengal contributed to the BJP’s tally.

Emboldening Modi’s national agenda

The feisty, varicoloured regional parties in West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu had mounted a strident defiance against the Modi government for years, amid the struggles of the grand old Congress to stay viable as a credible alternative.

The DMK’s Mr M.K. Stalin, the Left alliance’s Mr Pinarayi Vijayan and Trinamool’s Ms Mamata Banerjee, represented ideologies, languages and populations that stood in stark contrast to the BJP’s Hindu nationalist, Hindi-dominant, centralised politics. 

“The loudest and most vocal defences for federalism, and pushback against the BJP agendas of delimitation, citizenship differentiated by religion, and One Nation One Election, came from these regional leaders,” Ms Aiyar told ST.

With these state satraps weakened and distracted by their own existential crises after spectacular losses, the BJP might be emboldened to push through its national agendas more quickly, and with little resistance, she added. 

Without them, it is unclear if there will be nuanced, non-partisan discussion about crucial issues that could change the future of India.

A critical piece of legislation the Modi government could bring up soon is “One Nation One Election” – the proposal to synchronise the national and all state elections in the country to slash election costs. Critics say this will erode state autonomy in a diverse country. In addition, the government could reintroduce a proposal for delimitation – the redrawing of constituencies by population – that was thwarted in March 2026 by opposition votes against it in Parliament.

Other issues on the right-wing BJP’s to-do list are to make the citizenship and rights of Muslims more precarious, while replacing religion-based personal laws on marriage, inheritance and divorce with a single, uniform set of laws. 

For some of the above, the government needs more votes in the Upper House of Parliament, where legislators are nominated by the states. The BJP does not currently have a majority here as it does in the Lower House, but with more states under its wing now, it might soon overcome this hurdle too, analysts said. 

Most states today are no longer governed by regional parties but by national ones – mostly the BJP.

“This potentially offers policy stability for the next eight years, which in the context of these globally turbulent times, is a lifetime,” said Mr Malik.

But Ms Krishnaswamy believes that it is not healthy for the federal compact for India.

“It might seem like one-party dominance will produce smoother governance and easy, homogenous policies. But you cannot govern a quintessentially heterogenous collection of regions with a singular lens. The federal balance will come only from entities whose whole job is to advocate and care for sub-national, regional rights. 

“Unlike more homogenous, small countries, or those that aren’t democracies, delivering governance at a subcontinental scale is not easy. India’s states are too diverse in culture, language, economy, standard of living, gender equations, education and infrastructure to be ruled from Delhi alone,” she said.  

Bangladesh considerations

But it is not all rosy for the Modi government, given the war in Iran and the questions over India’s energy security. These could have a bearing on the government in the run-up to 2029.

In addition, once BJP governments are sworn in at the border states of West Bengal and Assam, analysts expect India’s hostility towards Bangladesh to intensify. 

The BJP campaign in both states invoked the spectre of cross-border infiltration, stoking xenophobic fears. In reality, India’s 250,000 refugees and around five million foreigners make up just under 0.4 per cent of its 1.4 billion population. 

The Indian government hopes to rebuild strained diplomatic ties with Bangladesh’s new government under Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, while also promising Indians that it will raise higher, tougher fences to curb alleged security concerns from illegal immigration.

“There is certainly a possibility of India finding a new balance vis a vis Bangladesh. But India should be alive to the fact that using foreign policy to further domestic politicisation will always limit our ability to play deft diplomatic strategy,” said Ms Aiyar.

Correction note: This story has been updated to correct a mistake regarding the Bangladeshi prime minister’s name. We are sorry for the error.