Modi’s party takes electoral hit

Ruling BJP suffers resounding defeat in key state election amid virus surge

NEW DELHI: India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi suffered a resounding defeat in a key state election, indicating his Hindu nationalist party’s political strength may be slipping as the country struggles to contain an unprecedented surge in coronavirus cases.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was unable to dislodge West Bengal state’s firebrand chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, after a hardfought campaign on Sunday.

Banerjee, 66, is set to be the chief of West Bengal for the third time after her Trinamool Congress party (TMC) won a two-thirds majority, taking more than 200 seats in the 294-seat state assembly, election commission officials said.

Final counting for some seats was still underway.

Banerjee is now India’s only woman chief minister.

Banerjee, a sharp critic of Modi, largely conducted a one-woman campaign to retain power by leading scores of public rallies.

“It is a stupendous performance by Mamata Banerjee because Modi was determined to win Bengal, but it’s clear that his entire political machinery and strategy was unable to defeat her,” said Diptendu Bhaskar, a political analyst in Kolkata, West Bengal’scapital.

On Sunday night, Modi took to Twitter to congratulate rival Banerjee’s win.

“The Centre will continue to extend all possible support to the West Bengal Government to fulfillpeople’s aspirations and also to overcome the Covid-19 pandemic,” he wrote.

His party also failed to win in two southern states, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

But the BJP secured a second term in the northeastern state of Assam and an alliance with regional parties led it to victory in the union territory of Puducherry.

Even before the current virus surge, Modi’s party faced stiff challenges in these local legislative elections.

“The BJP started running out of steam as the pandemic spread,” political analyst Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay said.

“The verdict in West Bengal state will definitely weaken Modi’s position,” he added, but cautioned that the results needed to be studied further to determine how much they were a referendum on the ruling BJP’s handling of Covid-19 pandemic.

Meanwhile, health experts say the massive electoral rallies and marches held as voters cast their ballots in March and April are partly to blame for the subsequent spike in infections.

Public anger for allowing the elections to go forward despite the risk has been directed at both Modi’s government and the Election Commission. — Agencies