The resurgent BJP is on a winning spree. It is creating record after record and scoring spectacular victories in state after state, dislodging the corrupt and fake secular Congress and minority-appeasing regional outfits. It started its victory march in December 2013 when elections to the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and Congress-ruled Rajasthan were held. The BJP trounced the Congress for the third time in a row in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and won almost all the seats in Rajasthan. These were splendid victories and the then Gujarat Chief Minister and Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s contribution to the BJP’s grand success was simply outstanding.

However, it was in May this year that the BJP under the leadership of Narendra Modi and BJP national president Rajnath Singh, who consistently gave the Prime Ministerial candidate his unflinching support since the party’s crucial Goa conclave, that the BJP created a history of sorts by winning as many as 282 seats on its own strength and 336 in alliance with its NDA partners. The epoch-making election results ended the 10-year-long misrule of the Congress-led UPA Government and created for the BJP a noble situation with even countries like the United States doing a complete U-turn and sending signals that they want to do serious business with the Narendra Modi Government.

The election results were significant not only because the alienated Indian electorate comprehensively defeated the Congress and denied it even the opportunity of occupying the office of Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, but also because it rejected many a regional and casteist party. The DMK, the JDU, the RLD, the SP, the JDS, the BSP, the NCP, the NC, to mention only a few, shared between them only a dozen of seats, with the DMK, the RLD, the DMK, the BSP and the NC not winning even a single seat. The electorate also reduced the strength of the Left parties in the lower house of Parliament. Indeed, the 2014 general elections proved a waterloo for outfits and formations which professed and continue to profess a perverted ideology.

It is true that the BJP didn’t fare well in the by-elections in Bihar, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh and lost about 10 assembly seats to the JDU-RLD-Congress combine and the Samajwadi Party, but these were aberrations, which happen. It is a different story that the secular fundamentalists and their supporters in sections of the anti-BJP media sought to create an impression that Narendra Modi’s style of functioning had disappointed the people and that he had won the general elections only by making “false promises” and “unleashing misinformation campaign”.

That their criticism had no basis became clear in the just-held elections in the Congress and Congress-NCP-ruled states of Haryana and Maharashtra. The BJP, which had an insignificant presence in Haryana and a limited area of influence in Maharashtra, broke all previous records. It won 47 seats in the 90-member House in Haryana and 122+ seats in the 288-member House in Maharashtra, despite the fact that it went to the polls alone after its allies – the Shiv Sena and the Haryana Janhit Congress – left it with no other option. Its vote share was an all-time high in both states. In Haryana, it increased its tally from the existing 04 to 47 and its vote-share rose to over 33 per cent. As for Maharashtra, the BJP increased its tally from the existing 46 to 122 and got 27.7 per cent of the total popular votes polled. In 2009, its vote-share was 14.2 per cent.

As for as the Congress and the NCP, which also went to the polls after ending their 15-year-old alliance, and the Shiv Sena and the MNS in Maharashtra and the INLD and the HJC in Haryana were concerned, they fared poorly, barring the Shiv Sena. The Congress won only 15 seats in Haryana, as against its 2009 tally of 40 (loss of 25 seats), and 42 in Maharashtra, as against its 2009 tally of 82 – a huge loss of 38 seats.

The Shiv Sena improved its position both in terms of seats and vote-share, rising from 44 to 63 seats and increasing its vote-share by over 1 per cent. The MNS got a solitary seat; it won 13 seats in 2009. As for the INLD and the HJC, the former won 19 seats and suffered a loss of 12 seats and the latter won only 2 seats, as against its 2009 tally of 6.

In other words, the electorate in Maharashtra and Haryana not only rendered the Congress and the NCP very weak, but also rejected outright the regional outfits like the MNS and the HJC. The somewhat good show put up by the Shiv Sena was because its old association with the BJP; hence the electorate voted for those BJP and Shiv Sena candidates who they believed could defeat the Congress and NCP candidates. The success of the INLD candidates in 19 constituencies could also be attributed to the fact that the BJP and INLD were viewed by the Jats as friendly parties.

The grand success of the BJP in Maharashtra and Haryana has electrified the political scene in the election-bound Jammu & Kashmir where too, the BJP created history in May by winning all three Lok Sabha seats in Jammu and Ladakh and securing over 32 per cent of the total votes polled.

On June 23, the martyrdom day of Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee, the BJP declared 44+ as its mission for the assembly elections in Jammu & Kashmir; since then it has been working with single-minded devotion to achieve this goal. Now, the historic victory of the BJP in Maharashtra and Haryana has electrified the election scene in Jammu & Kashmir with election-managers giving final touches to their election strategy. In fact, on the day the BJP scored victories in these two states, the upbeat state leadership and cadres urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP national president Amit Shah to replicate Maharashtra and Haryana in Jammu & Kashmir. This would not be surprising; such is the prevailing situation in this border state.

Significantly, the victory of the BJP in Haryana and Maharashtra has further demoralised the already rather demoralised Congress, the National Conference of Omar Abdullah and the Peoples Democratic Party of Mufti Sayeed and Mehbooba Mufti. The fear is that these demoralised and desperate militant-friendly outfits could arouse sectarian passions in the Valley with a view to stopping the BJP’s democratic march to the civil secretariat, the seat of power. They have come to believe that the BJP could spring a surprise by wining 5 to 7 seats in the Kashmir Valley. That would be a genuine denouement.