POLITICAL LANDSCAPE

Even as the year was marked by ideological triumphs for the BJP, its record on the electoral front was mixed, with more setbacks than successes.

In the first set of state elections after the Lok Sabha polls, Maharashtra threw up a hung assembly — BJP was the single largest party, and along with Shiv Sena, it had a majority. But the Sena demanded rotational chief ministership. When the BJP refused to relent, Sena aligned with the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). The BJP sought to wean away NCP leader Ajit Pawar, but the ploy failed. Uddhav Thackeray (below) took over as CM and BJP lost one of India’s most important states.

In Haryana, the BJP retained power — but it lost its majority, and had to ally with Dushyant Chautala. In Jharkwere hand, in a subsequent election, the BJP lost power to the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-Congress combine. And in

Delhi, earlier this year, despite a highvoltage campaign, in which several BJP leaders accused of hate speech, the Aam Aadmi Party won a resounding mandate for the second time in a row, bringing Arvind Kejriwal back to power.

All of this established a new trend in Indian politics — of voters carefully distinguishing between national polls and state polls, national leaders and state leaders, and national issues and state issues. Anecdotes from the ground and surveys suggested that PM Modi remained the most popular national leader, but this was not enough to offset local disadvantages the BJP had.

The party also confronted another political challenge — in the form of a proliferation of protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and a possible National Register of Citizens. The protests were led largely by Muslims, but lso included others pposed to the govthe ernment. While

JP’s support base rallied behind the government, the public opposition raised questions bout social harmony, nd led to interna

nal criticism.