The Prime Minister was not a candidate in the four states that have elected new assemblies, three of them having plumped for his party. But Mr. Narendra Modi confirmed on Sunday that he remains the enduring leitmotif of Indian politics, with his Bharatiya Janata Party coming up trumps in the major states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, where it was projected to face tough challenges, and improving its presence in Telangana, a state no one expected it to win. In the past, the Congress may have been accused of a lethargic, almost an entitled approach. But over the past couple of years, the party has done everything it possibly could to expand its footprint – including swallowing its pride to join a national alliance; projecting local leaders; fiddling with caste arithmetic and having its leader complete a political trek down the length of the country. And yet, almost every time it has run into this political phenomenon called Modi, it has stumbled.

While this confirms just how tall a politician the Prime Minister is, and how reassuring his presence seems to be to voters, paradoxically it also makes the pygmies who confront him appear even smaller. The bottom line therefore is that regardless of the real – and imagined – shortcomings of the BJP’s muscular politics, the opposition just withers away when voters ask that crucial question – whom do you have to replace Mr. Modi? The question was asked once again in the states that went to the polls last month, and the answer on Sunday was quite unequivocal. Well might pundits argue that the election was determined by the success of this scheme or the failure of that one in a particular state; or the selection of candidates, or even raise that old bogey of incumbency, the fact that the Prime Minister’s towering presence did the trick once again is undeniable. While Telangana might provide some saliva for the Congress to lick its wounds, the alliance it hoped would be its chariot to power next year will feel the immediate strain of the party’s latest failures, especially in the states it thought it would win. Overall, the party’s footprint has shrunk, for it has lost one big and one mid-sized state while gaining one mid-sized state.

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The BJP on the other hand has stamped its dominance over the Hindi heartland, showing that its election machine is far better placed than those of its rivals to join the 2024 battle. The Congress – and its alliance partners – may well tell themselves that even a day is a long time in politics, and there are still months to go before the parliamentary election takes place. They might even draw hope from a possibility of the BJP making mistakes in the weeks and months ahead. But until they find a way to deal with the Modi factor, they will be whistling in the wind.