The exceptions to these losses were the BJP’s success in the U.P. assembly elections in 2017 and in Assam and Tripura in 2019. But, even then, the party lost a series of by-elections – Gorakhpur, Phulpur, Noorpur, Kairana, Alwar, Ajmer – and was able to win only five of the 24 Lok Sabha by-elections that it fought directly. Among the other parties, the Congress won five, the Trinamool Congress four and the Samajwadi Party three. True, the BJP has since clawed its way back to power in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Karnataka by fair means and foul. But the list of its setbacks is formidable.

It is also worth remembering that the BJP’s 2014 success was the result of the extraordinary collapse of the Congress as a result, first, of an eruption in the body politik of the party’s known malady – corruption – and, secondly, because of Sonia Gandhi’s scuttling of Manmohan Singh’s reforms agenda under the pressure of the Left-leaning National Advisory Council headed by her. She might have also felt that Manmohan Singh’s continuing success, which was evident from the rise in the Congress’s tally from 145 in 2004 to 206 in 2009, would make it increasingly difficult for Rahul to step into his shoes. Sonia’s stalling of the reforms enabled Modi to present himself as a man in favour economic development.

Even then, the BJP’s electoral reverses from 2015 onwards, which made a TV channel quote a supporter saying “hum toh baith gayen thhe” (we had sat down/collapsed), showed that the party was on a sticky electoral wicket in spite of a divided opposition. There is little doubt that the BJP’s fortunes revived in the wake of the Balakote airstrikes against the terror camps in Pakistan and the party hasn’t looked back since as it grew stronger and the opposition became weaker. But much has happened since then to suggest that it will be a mistake to believe that the BJP remains as formidable as in 2019.

For one, the economic malaise may have worsened as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. For another, the sharp deterioration in the Sino-Indian relations has raised the grim possibility of the nation having to wage a war on two fronts in the north and west which has long been predicted by strategic analysts. The only way to avoid such a predicament is to improve ties with Pakistan or China or both. To be fair, as Modi’s impromptu visit to Lahore in 2015 showed, the prime minister did make an earnest effort to repair the relations with Pakistan. But it is apparently the latter’s army and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) – the so-called Deep State, India’s perennial foe – which undermined such conciliatory endeavours.

Over the last two months, India’s relations with China, too, have reached rock bottom although Modi did reach out to President Xi Jinping during bilateral interactions in Wuhan and Mamallapuram. But no less worrying than this weakening of ties with China is the downturn in India’s friendship with Nepal and Bangladesh, two neighbours with whom India has had age-old social, economic and cultural ties, predating (in Bangladesh’s case) the partition of the subcontinent in 1947.

None of this bodes well for the BJP. Moreover, the party’s pre-Balakote setbacks showed that Modi’s popularity could not always be taken for granted. Some of it was a myth propagated by the BJP’s army of trolls and the “godi” or lapdog media. Although several opinion polls has favoured the BJP, it is not impossible that they banked rather too heavily on the middle class, the so-called balcony brigade whose banging of thhalis (metal plates), clapping of hands and lighting of diyas (lamps) to boost morale during the pandemic, show them up as inveterate Modi bhakts. It is doubtful, however, if any of the itinerant migrant labourers who undertook epic journeys to escape the rigours of the lockdown will side with the balcony crowd. Nor will those sections of the middle class who have questions about the government’s handling of the corona crisis as the rising number of cases shows.

The Bihar elections later in the year and in West Bengal in 2021 will reveal which way the wind is blowing. As of now, the BJP is seemingly better placed in both the states because of the weakness of its opponents in Bihar and the Trinamool Congress’s sleaze and internal squabbles in West Bengal. But the head winds of the virus, the economy and the tension on the border against the BJP cannot be ignored. (IPA Service)