Why East India remains a challenge for the BJP

The eastern states of Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand, with 96 Lok Sabha seats collectively, are significant for any national party seeking victory in the general elections, individually or in an alliance.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s influence in these three states has increased since 2009 when it won 41 seats to 45 in 2014. In 2019, the party won 61 seats, powered by inroads in West Bengal where it picked up 18 seats, taking the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance past 300 seats.

But the BJP may not find it so easy to translate its gains into electoral success. Voters approach national and state elections differently. At the same time, the political landscape in the three states has seen immense flux.

Seeking to win a record third term in 2024, with ambitions of crossing 400 seats, the Hindutva party will have to hold on to its gains, especially in these three states, over the past few years.

2019 election

During the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the BJP and its allies were in power in both Jharkhand and Bihar, which may have contributed to their success in these states. Administrative control in the state can work to the advantage of the ruling party, like in the case of rolling out welfare schemes that can give it an edge.

In Bihar, the BJP and its allies the Janata Dal (United) and the Lok Janshakti Party together won 39 of 40 Lok Sabha seats. In Jharkhand, the BJP and ally All Jharkhand Students Union won 12 of 14 seats.

In West Bengal, too, the BJP made inroads, winning 18 of 42 seats despite being an opposition party.

Since then, in the assembly elections, the BJP lost Jharkhand to the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-Congress alliance later that year. Two years later, the Trinamool Congress swept the 2021 West Bengal state elections despite a fierce fight by the BJP. In West Bengal, too, the Trinamool Congress had initiated welfare schemes such as Duare Sarkar, or government at your doorstep.

In February, after a series of flip flops, Nitish Kumar and the Janata Dal (United) returned to an alliance with the BJP in Bihar, which is the only of these three eastern states where it is in power.

Three poll fronts

In 2021, the Trinamool Congress won 213 of 294 seats in the West Bengal assembly. The BJP bagged 77 seats – currently down to 68 due to defections.

But the Hindutva party’s string of defeats in the panchayat and municipal elections and by-elections that followed has made it difficult to keep up the momentum from the 2019 Lok Sabha election, when it got 40.7% of the vote share.

Its vote share plunged to 37.97% in the 2021 state elections, dipped further to 23% during the 2023 panchayat elections.

In Jharkhand, the BJP’s Lok Sabha success did not translate into a victory in the 2019 assembly elections. The BJP alliance lost power despite winning 33.37% of the vote share in the state.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP and its allies, the Janta Dal United and Lok Janshakti Party, dominated Bihar with a vote share of 54%, according to think tank Lokniti-CSDS.

In 2020, the BJP-Janata Dal United won the Bihar state elections. Two years later, Nitish Kumar walked out of the alliance in 2022 and rejoined hands with the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress.

Kumar switched sides again in January, returning to the NDA fold. Significantly, in the months before, Kumar had criticised the lack of progress in talks among parties of the INDIA Opposition bloc for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

State politics

It is not just electorally but also on other fronts that the BJP may face a tough fight in the three states.

In Bihar, during its short-lived tenure, the Congress-Rashtriya Janata Dal and Janata Dal (United) Mahagathbandhan, or grand alliance, government emphasised job creation.

This may favour the perception of these parties, especially following the lakhs of recruitments in government jobs in the state since late 2023.

During the government’s floor test on February 12, Rashtriya Janata Dal and Kumar’s former deputy Tejashwi Yadav sent a message that the Opposition was united. “I am not alone,” he said on the floor of the state assembly. “Congress and Left are with me, and we will defeat BJP.”

In Jharkhand, Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s arrest put the government in a challenging situation. The Enforcement Directorate arrested Soren on January 31 in connection with a money-laundering case. But Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader Champhai Soren was sworn in as chief minister on February 2, countering the BJP’s claims of dynastic politics in the state.

In West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee’s new handouts, declared during the state budget, are likely to benefit the Trinamool Congress.

The budget, announced in February, increased the provision for women under the financial assistance scheme Lakhsmir Bhandar. The monthly allowance has been increased from Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 for general category women and from Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,200 for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe women.

The state budget also introduced the Karmashree Scheme, modelled on the Centre’s rural employment guarantee scheme, offering up to 50 days of work.

The Centre owes West Bengal Rs 2,770 crore under the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. The amount has been pending for nearly a year. Alleging corruption in the state, the Centre has withheld payments, including wages, under the scheme, which has led to labourers suffering.

What 2024 could hold

The BJP is leaving no stone unturned, neither on the political nor religious polarisation front. It has followed the Ram temple inauguration by notifying the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act, which is especially likely to affect West Bengal. Fears among Muslims when the law was passed in 2019 reflected in increased support for the Trinamool Congress in the state assembly elections.

Under the BJP, central agencies have been accused of targeting opposition leaders for a few years now. Abhishek Banerjee, widely considered Mamata Banerjee’s successor, has been questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate in connection with a teacher recruitment scam. Two Trinamool Congress ministers have been jailed for their involvement in alleged jobs and ration scams.

In Bihar, former chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav and his son and party leader Tejashwi Yadav were questioned in the land-for-jobs scam.

For the BJP, the main task now lies in holding on to and expanding the inroads it has made in these three states. That voters tend to vote differently in Lok Sabha and state assembly elections may work in favour of the BJP to some extent. The Opposition parties, on the other hand, face the uphill task of retaining their support from state assembly elections.

Sumanta Roy is a doctoral candidate at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Spandan Roy Basunia is a graduate student at the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata.