ISAS South Asia Scan

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a landslide victory in the 2019 Indian general election. Though the margin of the BJP’s victory in 2019, where it won 37.4 per cent of the vote share, was nearly six per cent higher than in 2014, the fundamentals of the victory were similar to that in 2014. In this publication, we look at six factors that were crucial to the BJP’s victory in 2019 and assess some of the implications for future policy and governance. These factors are Modi’s popularity and vote catching abilities; the BJP’s geographical expansion; the caste composition of the BJP’s support base and marginalisation of minorities; the emergence of nationalism and national security as electoral campaign issues; the ruralisation of the BJP; and the importance of welfare schemes.