In November, only a couple of weeks before polling for the Assembly election in Madhya Pradesh, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan told The Hindu, “People sitting in Delhi talk about things like anti-incumbency. Come to Madhya Pradesh and you will find there is only pro-incumbency for the BJP.” He was right. The election result in the State, announced on December 3, was historic for several reasons, but it first showed how the BJP had become such a formidable election machine. Many pundits scoffed at the thought that the BJP would return to power after ruling the State for almost 20 years, but the party proved the naysayers wrong by registering a win that was by all accounts “massive”. Madhya Pradesh has now been added to the list of States—Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat—where the BJP is dominant and hard to challenge.
The surprise win in Chhattisgarh only strengthened the BJP’s grip over the Hindi heartland—the north and west of India. The States in this belt are all crucial to the 2024 Lok Sabha election. Up north, the Congress is in power only in Himachal Pradesh. The way things have stacked up, Narendra Modi seems to be in pole position to return as Prime Minister for a third term. This, however, does not mean the BJP is invincible, or that it faces no challenges. Indian politics is too complex to give any one party such a clean or unencumbered walkover.