Modi's guarantee stamped on heartland as India gears up for 2024 Lok Sabha elections

Prime Minister Narendra Modi stamped his electoral authority on the heartland ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls as the BJP wrested Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh from the Congress while retaining Madhya Pradesh with a two-thirds majority.

The Congress, however, defeated the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) to secure a convincing win in Telangana. This is the second state the party has won in the South after its victory in Karnataka six months ago. The BJP too improved its performance in the state, taking its tally from one seat to eight.

The 3-1 scoreline in this round of assembly elections is a comforting signal for the BJP’s poll prospects next year. In 2018, it had lost the three states but managed to win 62 out of the 65 Lok Sabha seats in these states in 2019. The party later formed the government in MP following a split within the Congress in 2020.


“The echo of these election results is not going to be confined to the states but will be felt across the world. It will bolster the trust in India,” Modi said in his victory speech.

The BJP improved its vote share by over 7% in MP, around 3% in Rajasthan and most significantly, by over 13% in Chhattisgarh.

With the current victory, the Modi-led BJP is in pole position yet again for the Lok Sabha polls in these seats.

Overall, 171 seats are at stake in the heartland, including Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat. The BJP currently has 153 of these and will back itself to improve on this after Sunday’s results. The big takeaway for the BJP was Modi’s enduring personal appeal in these states.

The party had crafted its campaign around the PM, his welfare interventions and larger credibility. This paid off as it was the only party not to suffer an anti-incumbency vote — in MP, Shivraj Singh Chouhan had been in power for four terms. Meanwhile, incumbent governments in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Telangana lost.

This was an election where the BJP entirely relied on its central campaign machinery. Central leaders and those from other states were deployed for the first time at an assembly-level election by the party in these states. It tactically announced no CM face in the three states and the appeal was to vote for Modi. The Modi guarantee and his track record on delivery was highlighted during the campaign to counter the Congress guarantee.

The BJP gained among every section of voters. During his speeches, Modi described the poor, youth, women and farmers as four castes, to counter the caste census narrative of the Congress. Through this, the BJP was able to draw a contrast on the ground between Modi’s model of inclusive development and the caste-based politics of the Congress.

The focus on women voters through government schemes like Ladli Behna in MP and announcement of Rs 1,000 per month for women in Chhattisgarh set the tone for the party’s ‘naari shakti’ campaign.

The announcement of free ration under PM Garib Kalyan Yojana for the next five years also helped keep intact the voters who benefited from the schemes.

With these victories, the BJP, along with its allies, now control 17 states.