From Bane to Boon: A Study of Electoral Success of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Contemporary Indian Politics

• PRACHI RAJ

  University of Delhi

Indian Politics has experienced a paradigm shift in the last two decades as far as its electoral performance is concerned. The political dominance of the Congress system was challenged with the emergence of coalition politics and later with the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party, also marking a significant change in the Indian electoral history. The BJP’s rise shows an impressive story of tireless, continuous effort to achieve this gain, and that too by replacing the Congress, one of the oldest and strongest political stakeholders in Indian Politics. The BJP, at one point, often experienced political bane, has now successfully turned it into a boon and marked its political presence pan-India since 2014. The party, for the aforesaid reason, has maintained a few compromises in its ideological base, party leadership, and is now oriented towards an inclusive approach for several marginalised groups, which is an important segment of research for this paper. By using the content analysis method, this paper seeks to study the reasons behind the electoral rise of the BJP in contemporary Indian politics and examine whether the latter has a future roadmap to survive it. If yes, is the BJP going to maintain one-party dominance or a system like the Congress in Indian politics? For this purpose, a brief psephological reflection of India’s General Elections since the 1990s, along with a comparative analysis of the electoral performance of both the Congress and the BJP.

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