With the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) resounding victory in West Bengal, is the game over for the Opposition in India’s politically most crucial state, Uttar Pradesh, which goes to polls in less than a year?
On the face of it, the odds heavily favour the ruling party. Despite little grassroots organisation and the absence of a local charismatic leader in Bengal, the BJP has demolished the Opposition’s last citadel in the East. In Uttar Pradesh, where the party has had a phenomenal rise since the advent of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and has been under Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's "bulldozer rule" for nearly a decade, it looks like child’s play for the ruling party to sweep to a third successive term in office.
Unsurprisingly, the Opposition is deeply demoralised at the moment at its prospects in the state where it is vital for it to keep alive—not just for its own sake but the future of competitive politics in the country.
Yet, it would be unwise to synchronise the BJP’s astonishing breakthrough in capturing West Bengal for the first time and the upcoming state Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, where the party has had historic ups and downs over the past several decades in polls.