“It is the vast machinery itself that runs the giant system of dominant BJP” | Photo credit: AFP
The phase of Indian politics since 2014 is widely referred to as the fourth party system, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as the dominant pole, increasingly structuring the field of economic competition at both national and state levels. Some observers have regularly questioned whether this BJP-dominated system represents permanent structural dominance or rather ephemeral electoral dominance, largely built on and sustained by the charismatic leadership of Narendra Modi.
These rounds of state elections (in Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry) should resolve the issue in favor of structural dominance. The defeat of the National Democratic Alliance in the 2024 general elections suggested that Mr. Modi’s charismatic appeal had begun to recede from the dizzying heights it had climbed over the previous decade. Yet the BJP has fared much better in the 2024-2026 election phase than it did in 2014-16, when Mr. Modi still carried the transformational vikas purush aura, or in 2019-21, when he became a lean messiah embodying an unrivaled reservoir of popular trust. Only in the current cycle has the BJP managed to come to power in Odisha, Delhi and West Bengal, the biggest prize of all.
Published – May 5, 2026 0:16 AM IST
