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.