As India undertakes a six-week general election, Narendra Modi’s presence is pervasive, appearing on everything from rice packs distributed to the underprivileged to large posters in urban areas.
His Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is banking on the prime minister’s popularity to secure a super-majority in India’s parliament. Their message emphasizes Modi’s track record of delivering economic growth, infrastructure development, and enhancing India’s global stature.
Despite targeting 400 out of 543 seats in India’s lower house of parliament – a significant increase from the 352 seats won in 2019 – the Hindu nationalist party and its allies are also employing localized strategies in key constituencies they aim to win from the opposition.
Opinion polls suggest Modi is poised to win an unprecedented third term as voting concludes on June 1. However, in Indian history, only the centre-left Congress party has crossed the 400-seat mark, achieving this feat following the assassination of its leader Indira Gandhi in 1984.
To delve into how the right-wing National Democratic Alliance (NDA) plans to achieve this ambitious goal – and the challenges it faces – Reuters interviewed nine NDA officials, three opposition leaders, two political analysts, and voters in six opposition-held seats targeted by the alliance.
They identified three key tactics employed by the BJP: fielding celebrity candidates to challenge seasoned opposition lawmakers, making inroads into the opposition’s southern strongholds by appealing to minority groups like Christians, and leveraging redrawn political boundaries to bolster the Hindu electorate in some opposition-controlled northern areas.
BJP President J. P. Nadda, who oversees the party’s election strategy, expressed confidence that a combination of strategies, organizational commitment, and tactical flexibility would help them penetrate constituencies never before held by the party.
Critics caution that a large majority for the BJP could lead to a more radical agenda in a third term. While the party’s manifesto emphasizes economic growth, it also pledges to abolish separate legal codes for religious and tribal groups in areas such as marriage and inheritance, a move opposed by many Muslims and tribal groups.
Despite early voting witnessing low turnout, some BJP campaign officials appear less assured in recent days about securing a massive majority. Nevertheless, the party remains optimistic about forming the next government.
Southern Strategy
While Modi’s party has criticized dynastic politics in Congress, which has long been dominated by the Nehru-Gandhi family, in Pathanamthitta, a seat in the southern state of Kerala, the BJP is fielding Anil Antony, the son of veteran Congress leader A.K. Antony, to challenge Congress’s stronghold.
Pathanamthitta, with a significant Christian minority, has been a Congress bastion since its inception in 2009. Anil’s candidacy has divided his family, with his father supporting the incumbent and denouncing his son for representing the Hindu nationalist party. However, Anil has Modi’s backing, who praised him for his “fresh vision and leadership” during a visit in March.
Nadda acknowledged that winning a supermajority would require the NDA to perform well in the five southern states, which collectively account for about 20% of India’s population but have traditionally not favored his party. In the 2019 elections, the NDA won just 31 out of 130 seats across Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, all of which are linguistically diverse with significant Muslim and Christian populations.
Jiji Joseph, general secretary of the BJP’s minority wing in Kerala, highlighted the party’s concerted effort to woo the state’s 18% Christian voters, a group that had not previously supported the BJP. He noted that the BJP had established direct contact with church leaders, resulting in a growing belief among Christians that the BJP represents their interests.
Anil’s endorsement by Christian leaders in April marked a significant milestone for the BJP in Kerala. Anil, the first BJP candidate in Kerala to receive such backing, sees his selection as evidence that the party offers opportunities to minority group members. He refrained from commenting on his relationship with his father.
Jayant Joseph, a Christian voter in Kerala, cited media reports of Muslim men marrying Christian women and converting them to Islam as a reason for supporting the BJP. While most moderate Hindus consider allegations of large-scale forced conversions to be a conspiracy theory, Joseph emphasized the need to check the Muslim population’s growth to maintain Kerala’s secular character.
An aide to Modi, speaking on condition of anonymity, revealed that the NDA expects to win around 50 seats in southern India.
K. Anil Kumar, a senior leader of Kerala’s ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist), expressed skepticism about the BJP’s prospects in the state, which he described as having a strong tradition of secularism. He emphasized that while the BJP might attempt to align with Christians on certain issues, it fundamentally remains a party representing Hindus.
Star Candidates
In the Mandi constituency of the northern state of Himachal Pradesh, the BJP has enlisted Bollywood actress Kangana Ranaut to challenge the Congress party’s dominance. Congress is fielding Vikramaditya Singh, whose mother currently represents the constituency, as its candidate. Singh’s father was the state’s long-time chief minister.
Ranaut, a political novice known for her roles in movies with nationalistic themes, has been critical of Bollywood executives for favoring the relatives of famous actors. She is one of five actors running for the BJP this year, up from four in 2019.
While no publicly available opinion polls focus on the Mandi race, Anjana Negia, an elementary school teacher supporting Ranaut, acknowledged her candidate’s lack of political experience. However, she appreciated Ranaut as a fresh face and believed that a Modi-backed candidate would usher in a new era of development.
The BJP’s embrace of celebrities and pursuit of endorsements from entertainment figures is a departure from its traditional cadre-based approach that prioritizes grassroots efforts, according to Milan Vaishnav, an expert on South Asian politics at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Ranaut declined an interview request, but federal BJP spokesman Shahzad Poonawala highlighted her role in exposing nepotism in Bollywood and now in politics.
Singh, who serves as a state minister responsible for urban development, countered allegations of nepotism, stating that his family’s experiences had provided him with a deeper understanding of politics.
Redistricting Benefits
In the northeastern state of Assam, where the NDA won nine out of 14 seats in 2019, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma expressed confidence in winning 13 seats following a 2023 redistricting exercise. While the Election Commission declined to comment on the exercises, the changes in Assam and Jammu and Kashmir diluted the Muslim vote in seats targeted by the NDA, according to BJP and opposition officials.
The NDA is particularly optimistic about Barpeta, a Congress-held constituency in Assam, which now includes many villages and towns with large Hindu populations. Phani Bhushan Choudhury, the NDA candidate, noted that the constituency, previously a Muslim-majority area, now has a Hindu majority, which he believes works in his favor.
Choudhury, campaigning on a platform of development and protection of the rights of “indigenous Assamese” voters, estimates there are now 1.2 million Hindu voters in Barpeta. His opponent Deep Bayan of Congress criticized the BJP for engaging in polarization politics instead of focusing on real issues affecting people.
In Jammu and Kashmir, where three out of five seats are majority Muslim and held by the opposition, the NDA aims to win Anantnag-Rajouri after its voter rolls expanded by over 50% to over 2 million. The new voters, many of whom are Hindus or from regional tribes, benefited from BJP policies granting them education and employment privileges, according to regional BJP chief Ravinder Raina.
Raina indicated that the BJP would support an NDA partner deemed capable of winning Anantnag-Rajouri while focusing on retaining the two Hindu-majority seats it currently holds.
The redistricting exercises in Assam and Jammu and Kashmir foreshadow a broader remapping of constituencies expected after the election. Vaishnav of the Carnegie Endowment suggested that the remapping would allocate seats to the BJP-dominated north, which experiences higher population growth rates, at the expense of wealthier southern India.
