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The political slogan of Congress-mukt Bharat (Congress-free India) was archetypal utilized by the BJP connected January 14, 2014, hardly 4 months earlier Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to powerfulness astatine the Centre.
“Congress Mukt Bharat BJP ka naara nahi hai, jan jan ka sankalp hai (Congress escaped India isn’t conscionable a BJP slogan but people’s slogan),” Mr. Modi, past the BJP’s premier ministerial face, told an enthusiastic assemblage astatine a nationalist rally successful Goa.
The slogan, since then, became the leitmotif of the BJP’s onslaught connected the Congress arsenic it sought to presumption itself arsenic the pan-India alternative.
But now, erstwhile the BJP has much oregon little replaced the Congress strategy — a word utilized by governmental idiosyncratic Rajni Kothari to picture one-party dominance — it’s the determination players who person been deed the hardest.
The unravelling of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) station the humiliating defeat successful the caller West Bengal Assembly polls reflects the existential questions that galore determination parties present face. And this is contempt the statement that determination players person outperformed the Congress successful one-on-one contests against the BJP.
Take the Lok Sabha polls, arsenic an example. The BJP’s occurrence complaint against the Congress connected seats which witnessed a bi-polar contention was 70%. But successful West Bengal, its occurrence complaint against the TMC was 33%, and successful Uttar Pradesh (U.P.), it had a onslaught complaint of 45% against the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party, adjacent though the SP has consistently mislaid 2 U.P. Assembly elections to the BJP since 2017.
Such comparisons are misleading. Regional parties whitethorn inactive decision the BJP successful nonstop contests, but they are progressively susceptible to splits, defections and absorption into BJP-led governmental coalitions.
In Maharashtra, some the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena and the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party not lone saw a vertical split, but the leaders besides mislaid their enactment symbols to the breakaway factions.
In Bihar, wherever the 2025 Assembly polls were contested connected Janata Dal (United) person Nitish Kumar’s governance record, the BJP has been capable to instal its ain Chief Minister for the archetypal clip ever.
And successful Assam, the narration betwixt the BJP and the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) has wholly reversed, with the AGP, erstwhile the flag-bearer of Assamese identity, reduced to being a inferior partner.
While the now-repealed arguable workplace laws forced the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) to interruption its confederation with the BJP successful Punjab, successful Odisha, the Biju Janata Dal, which had maintained affable relations with the Narendra Modi government, has been replaced by the BJP arsenic the ruling enactment successful the State.
Professor Kumar Sanjay, who teaches past astatine Delhi University’s Shraddhanand College, says the BJP’s existent trajectory reflects the unitary attack to politics, erstwhile associated with the Congress, which seeks to weaken determination parties and satraps.
“This helps them successful ensuring that decision-making remains astatine the Centre,” Prof. Sanjay said, adding, “They are highly alert and cognize of the roadblocks that determination parties tin make to a centrist party. The emergence of the BJP was from the large-scale mobilisation of determination parties during the anti-Congress question led by Jayaprakash Narayan oregon the JP movement.”
He argued that erstwhile determination parties question to situation unitary politics, they coalesce astir a centrist force.
“Around the precocious 1960s and the 1970s, this was provided by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Now, the Congress is trying to inhabit this space, with Rahul Gandhi fusing societal justness with his party’s ain payment authorities model,” Prof. Sanjay said.
