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For some time now, it has been a national pastime to watch, often with barely concealed schadenfreude, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s poaching of political stakeholders, famously lauded as ‘Operation Lotus’ by sections of a “committed media”; unabashed misuse of institutions, most notably the Election Commission of India); the gerrymandering of election outcomes through the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, which was blithely endorsed by a “committed Judiciary”; and the consequent weakening of opposition parties. 

Whatever one’s view on the legality of these manoeuvres may be – which surprisingly is dictated not by constitutionality, but by which side of the ideological spectrum one falls – it is important to look beyond the immediate, and reflect on the structural implications for India’s democracy. 

BJP’s second democratic upsurge

Sitaram Yechury once framed the rise of regional parties as a deepening and maturing of Indian democracy. He posited that regional parties arose both from the evolving aspirations of India’s electorate, and from the Indian National Congress’s growing inability (or unwillingness) to accommodate these demands within itself. Characterised as the second democratic upsurge, regional parties captured the vacuum left by the Congress. These parties often splintered from the Congress, and reorganised politics around local realities, such as caste and linguistic identities, and subnational priorities. 

Interestingly, and as a side note, these primordial markers overtook the once-dominant axis of haves versus have-nots which shaped Indian politics, once popularised by Garibi Hatao (eradicate poverty) and the Left’s oversized influence on the polity.

Over the past two decades, the BJP has systematically reversed the upsurge that began in the 1970s-80s. The BJP has deliberately deployed three strategies to grow at the cost of regional parties. The first phase of its playbook, which started well before 2014, rested on a calibrated engagement with regional parties. 

The BJP consciously entered as a junior partner in many states, allowing it to gain access to the state machinery, build organisational muscle, pursue its ideological agenda (which included positioning committed stakeholders in key levers of power) and expand its voter base without immediately confronting dominant regional parties head-on. But once that foothold was secured, the relationship invariably shifted, with the BJP growing primarily at the cost of its own allies. This pattern has been visible across multiple states, albeit with local variations.

For example, factions emerging from the Janata Parivar lineage in Karnataka aligned with the BJP – for instance, the Lok Shakti Party – only to be absorbed into its expanding structure, contributing significantly to BJP’s ascendance in Karnataka. 

Similarly, although the Janata Dal-United (JDU) oscillated between alliance and opposition to the BJP in Bihar, it has been methodically circumscribed, and it is only a matter of time before it is absorbed into the BJP. Likewise, despite its iron-clad support in various fora, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) was successfully dislodged from Odisha by the BJP. In a similar vein, the BJP’s allies – in Tamil Nadu, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam; the People’s Democratic Party in Jammu and Kashmir; Asom Gana Parishad in Assam; and in Punjab, the Shiromani Akali Dal – have all seen their influence waning because of their alliance with the BJP. 

In Maharashtra, the BJP went even further and directly engineered high-profile splits from both the Shiv Sena and the........

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