Modi suffers a rare setback

India’s prime minister Narendra Modi (pictured) has experienced “a rare political setback” after his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lost control of the southern state of Karnataka, says

John Reed in the Financial Times. The BJP only took 66 of the 224 seats in state elections, less than half the 135 that the rival Indian National Congress won. Karnataka, which is India’s wealthiest state and home to the Bangalore tech hub, was the only state the BJP governed in the country’s south. Congress had called the Karnataka vote “a stepping stone to rebuilding its base” ahead of national elections next year.

The BJP had “banked on Modi’s popularity” and “accused its opponent of disregarding Hindu values”, tactics that up until now have brought it a huge amount of success, says Astha Rajvanshi in Time. That included trying to exploit religious tensions by banning Muslim girls from wearing the headscarf as part of their school uniform. In contrast, Congress focused on bread-and-butter issues “like rising inflation and unemployment, food insecurity and farmer distress”.

Modi’s “aura of invincibility” has taken a knock, says The Economist. But note that Karnataka has “a strong tradition of anti-incumbency”; it hasn’t re-elected a government in more than four decades”. And arguably the BJP’s share of the vote held up well compared with other incumbent parties, with most of Congress’s gain coming at the expense of a local third party that will play no role in next year’s general election. Overall, there “is nothing here to augur defeat for Modi and his party in next year’s election”.