2020 was a successful electoral year for BJP. What will 2021 hold?

By the time the stand-off between farmer organisations and the government gets resolved and the green shoots of recovery in the economy grow bigger, the electoral challenges for the BJP may seem never ending.

Still, the ruling party’s performance in 2020, despite the pandemic-induced economic, health and social issues, gave it a sense of that it can win elections against all odds. On the other hand, the opposition seemed to have faltered thus far in the absence of leadership to match.

As the New Year opens with elections in Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, the BJP is again in direct competition with regional parties that have been at their wit's end since Narendra Modi became Prime Minister in 2014. In 2022, the BJP faces an even greater challenge in states such as Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Punjab.

In elections held in 2020, Modi propelled the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to win the Bihar polls and enabled ally Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar to make it to a fourth term as chief minister. Also, in a sweep of sorts in by-elections in seven out of 11 states, the BJP or its allies won 41 of the 59 seats.

Of these seats, 31 were at the expense of the Congress, which seems to be in a terrible state ever since the 2019 parliamentary polls left the top leadership in a limbo. Twenty-six of these seats came from Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat. The Rajya Sabha polls too showed the BJP take its number to 111 seats to Congress’s 65.

If Nitish Kumar’s return as CM albeit in a diminished state showed the growing strength of the BJP because of Modi, elsewhere, in places like Telangana, the party’s election machine showed that it has left rivals far behind in terms of poll preparations, dedication of cadres and a focused approach even it is a municipal election.

The by-lanes of old Hyderabad even saw Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP chief J P Nadda campaigning for the sake of winning  a few municipal wards —just to show a big jump in its base in a metropolis that resembles a mini-India of sorts.

It is in this context that BJP enters the next round of elections in Bengal where a vortex of political violence has pitted its cadre against the mighty muscle flexing by CM Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress, which is facing one of its worst internal crises.  Not to be outdone, the BJP has opened its doors to ex-TMC leaders who were once close to Mamata.

Violence has remained a tool of the ruling parties in Bengal whenever they were on the decline. The 1960s had seen the left and radical Naxalites face the wrath of the then ruling Congress establishment. When they came to power in 1977 under Jyoti Basu, the Marxists adopted the same tool to suppress dissent and the opposition. The CPI (M)’s slide in its popularity worsened the tool of engagement when its cadres unleash brutalities on all anti-Left parties, especially on Mamata herself and her supporters who left the Congress to form the TMC in 1998 over differences with the parent party on dealing with the Marxists. Mamata and her aides have not found the cycle of political violence abhorrent despite being its victims in previous years.

Buoyed by winning a stunning 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in 2019, Amit Shah has personally led the BJP’s campaign in the interiors of Bengal challenging Mamata’s stranglehold. The rallies by top leaders have boosted the morale of its rank and file and a rattled TMC leadership has responded with physical attacks on even BJP chief J P Nadda. The BJP has set itself the target of winning seats beyond the half-way mark in the 294-member house.

In Kerala where the BJP has ploughed a lonely furrow in the musical chair played by the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) and the CPI(M), the 2021 test is not so much of Modi’s as much as that of the party’s local leadership.

The Congress thinks it is the favourite to beat the CPI (M) to emerge the winner. Under Pinarayi Vijayan, the CPI (M) may have tightened its grip on its social base by better delivery of welfare but the decline of the party apparatus and its inability to keep a check on the functioning of the government has spawned stories of corruption in high places including the CM’s office.

The BJP sees itself bagging a few seats that were once the Marxist’s once-strong pocket boroughs because of its ability to offer a new ideological pole.

In Tamil Nadu, the entry of superstar Rajinikanth as a political player has upset the calculations of the opposition DMK more than the ruling AIADMK, which is seen as having a lesser chance to retaining power.

Rajinikanth’s move to form a political party after Pongal has been credited to the persuasion of well-wishers who back Modi with the sole objective of preventing a clean sweep of the DMK. Interestingly, Rajinikanth’s announcement of his foray came after the BJP and the AIADMK decided to keep their “old” alliance alive. In a post-poll scenario, in the event of the DMK being unable to breach the half-way mark, the BJP would be glad to play cupid by bringing together the AIADMK and Rajinikanth.

In neighbouring Puducherry, the Congress is not in the pink of health and a breakaway Congress faction led by ex-CM N Rangaswamy, which is aligned to the NDA and the AIADMK, is ready to strike.

But it is in Assam, the BJP is more comfortable than the rest. The state may have witnessed a botched-up National Register of Citizens (NRC) setting off a political storm of a different kind. But the BJP remains the fancied party to return to power, thanks to a rudderless Congress and an able CM it found in Sarbananda Sonawal, who has managed to push several developmental and infrastructure projects in the last five years. BJP’s man Friday Himanta Biswa Sarma too has contributed in a big way by keeping the party’s rivals divided and keeping the Hindutva agenda alive in a state.

Shekhar Iyer is a senior journalist. Views are personal.