2024 is no longer a ‘done deal’ for BJP. Bihar coup has changed India’s political landscape Yogendra Yadav 10 August, 2022
Thinking of India’s electoral map as three strips shows BJP only has 'dominance' over one. With no NDA left now, except in name, 2024 will be a challenge.
Yogendra Yadav
India’s electoral map as three strips. The first—the coastal belt—runs from West Bengal to Kerala. Add a few states like Punjab and Kashmir and you have a region where BJP is not the dominant political force. This region has 190 Lok Sabha seats. Last time the BJP won only 36 seats here (42, if you include its allies).
Regions it dominates—the north-west, comprising the Hindi heartland; minus Bihar and Jharkhand; plus Gujarat. The BJP has swept this region, characterised by a straight fight between BJP and its major rival (mostly Congress, except in Uttar Pradesh) both in 2014 and 2019, winning 182 (including 3 for small partners) out of the total 203 seats last time.
it needs another 100 seats from the remaining 150 in the remaining ‘middle belt’ comprising Karnataka, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Bihar (add Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya and Manipur) where the BJP faces a divided opposition. In 2019, the BJP won 130 seats here, 88 on its own. This is where the BJP allies made a big difference: With Karnataka slipping away, a repeat of 25 out of 28 looks highly improbable in the state. This could be halved if the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) come to an understanding (Deve Gowda’s rushing to welcome Nitish Kumar’s switch could be a straw in the wind). The fall of Uddhav Thackeray government in Maharashtra has, inadvertently, cemented the Maha Vikas Aghadi as an electoral coalition in 2024. If so, there is no way the BJP-Shinde duo can repeat the BJP-Shiv Sena tally of 41 out of 48 seats in 2019. If we assume that the BJP does nearly as well in Assam and hill states as it did last time, we are still looking at a loss of at least 10 seats for the BJP, and about 25 if you count the allies as well.