The number of states ruled by India’s main opposition party the Indian National Congress (INC) increased to five on Monday after its three new chief ministers (heads of state governments) took oath of office.
Ashok Gehlot became the chief minister of the western state of Rajasthan, Kamal Nath assumed the charge of the central state of Madhya Pradesh, while Bhupesh Baghel took oath of office in the central state of Chhattisgarh. The INC won in the recently-concluded state polls.
Two other INC-ruled states are Punjab in the north and Puducherry in the south. Besides, the party is an ally of a state-level party in southern Karnataka.
The INC wrested all the three states — Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh from the country’s main ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is now left with governments in 10 states. The BJP is an alliance partner in a few other states, including Maharashtra and Bihar.The results of the recently-concluded Indian state elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh, are a massive blow for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).The BJP has governed Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh for 15 years and has enjoyed a huge majority in Rajasthan for the last five years.
But in Madhya Pradesh, the Indian National Congress (INC) – the BJP’s main rival in next year’s national elections - won 114 seats (of 230) and is set to form government with the help of allies. The BJP could win only 109 seats, seven short of the required simple majority (116).
The INC’s performance in Chhattisgarh was even more remarkable, where it bagged 68 of the 90 assembly seats in the state, thereby ensuring a thumping defeat for the BJP.
In Rajasthan, where the ruling BJP government of Vasundhara Raje Scindia was battling a strong anti-incumbency wave owing to a particularly lacklustre performance over the past five years, the INC ended up with 99 seats of 199.
Two other states also recently went to the polls - Telangana and Mizoram – which were won by Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and Mizo National Front (MNF) respectively.
It may be too early to extrapolate the results of these state elections and draw conclusions about the fortunes of the BJP and INC in the forthcoming national elections, expected in April or May of next year. The 2019 federal elections will be fought over 29 different states, each with its unique political dynamics and local issues at play.
However, the states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh together make up 65 federal parliamentary seats; and at the last national election in 2014 the BJP won 62 of them.
RESENTMENT AGAINST THE BJP
Considering the state election results, the BJP will struggle to win even one-third of these seats during the federal elections.The results indicate there is a lot of resentment on the ground against the party and popular sentiment is shifting against it.
These three states are predominantly agrarian, where the share of agriculture in GDP and total workforce in agriculture is higher than the national average.
De-monetisation and the haphazard rolling out of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) were massive shocks to the informal economy including agriculture, from which the small-scale entrepreneurs and farmers have not yet completely recovered.
Prime Minister Modi’s promises of generating 20 million jobs per year and the much-vaunted Make in India policy has not lived up to its hype.
Further, there are serious concerns about the corrosive impact of the BJP-led government on various institutions. In the latest saga, the government has started to interfere with the workings of the Reserve Bank of India and is demanding it transfer additional amounts into its coffers for election expenditure.
This perceived interference is bound to make both domestic and international financial investors circumspect about the workings of an autonomous financial institution and may lead to a crisis in the currency and capital markets. This would surely dent Mr Modi’s image as a reformist Prime Minister, a plank on which he led his campaign in 2014.
IGNITING THE OPPOSITION
These state elections have given a new lease of life to India’s main opposition party, the INC.
