Even after the early morning skulduggery, Devendra Fadnavis and the Bhartiya Janata Party could not retain power in Maharashtra. Fadnavis resigned in 3 days and 8 hours, even before the floor test. The might of 'Chanakya' Amit Shah and PM Narendra Modi was tested but the duo lost to Sharad Pawar who showed there was fight left in the veteran war horse.
With BJP facing a debacle in Maharashtra, the second-most important state after Uttar Pradesh in terms of Lok Sabha seats, the party has been reduced to only 40% Indian states compared to 71% back in December 2017.
The sun rose for the party which once had only 2 Lok Sabha seats after the arrival of Narendra Modi to the centre. Modi's juggernaut swept across the country, ably supported by Amit Shah's tactics. From holding only seven state assemblies in 2014 to rising to a whopping 21 in 2018, the nation literally turned saffron.
Post the huge rise, the saffron party had a close shave in Modi's own bastion, Gujarat. However, the BJP lost its strong forts Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. In Andra Pradesh, TDP called off the alliance with the BJP while Jammu and Kashmir was gone due to President's Rule after the party broke off with PDP. BS Yediyurappa did manage a coup in Karnataka and BJP came back to power.
Despite all this, one should remember that BJP remains almost unbeatable when Modi is on the ticket. The Narendra Modi-led government won magnanimously in the Lok Sabha Elections 2019 and came back in the Centre but the states under the party's rule have fallen from 21 to 17. With elections to be held in Jharkhand soon, will another state slip from BJP's grasp?
