The BJP and Modi’s quest for a supermajority

ON 18 APRIL, news of a televised address to the country by India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, triggered widespread anxiety. The severe economic distress and fuel shortages prevailing due to the US-Israeli conflict with Iran would likely leave a lasting impact and require the same level of preparedness as the Covid-19 pandemic, Modi had remarked weeks earlier in the Indian parliament. He would later call on Indians to cut down on overseas travel and purchasing gold in order to address the crisis, facing scrutiny for his own air travel after making this suggestion.

However, rather than address these issues, his latest address turned out to be a lament following his government’s first legislative defeat – its failure in passing the Women’s Reservation Bill. “Yesterday, we did not have the numbers,” Modi said about the BJP’s failure to secure the two-thirds majority of votes in the Lok Sabha, or lower house, required to pass the bill, which would have entailed a constitutional amendment. “But that does not mean we lost,” he emphasised. 

Commanding a supermajority in both houses is crucial for securing the passage of constitutional amendments. Proposed legislation put forward by the BJP – such as the Uniform Civil Code, which seeks to replace faith-based personal laws, and the One Nation, One Election bill, which aims to hold simultaneous national and state elections across the entire country – has raised apprehensions about the party’s agenda to reshape India’s electoral map and the country itself in line with the BJP’s vision of Hindu nationalism. 

THE WOMEN’S RESERVATION BILL, first tabled in 1996 by the Communist Party of India (CPI) MP Geeta Mukherjee, was pending approval for decades until, in 2023, it was unanimously passed by both houses of parliament. But the Modi government only notified it as a law after a delay of over 30 months.

Women’s empowerment, or “nari shakti” in Hindi, has only recently become a key pillar of the BJP’s programme, with the party offering a slate of welfare benefits such as cash transfers and LPG connections to appeal to women voters. But the Modi government also has the highest number of lawmakers – 54 sitting legislators across parliament and state assemblies – who face declared cases of crimes against women, including rape and sexual assault. The dichotomy is crucial to understanding the BJP’s intent in pushing its agenda of women’s reservation. 

The BJP’s ideology of Hindu majoritarian nationalism, influenced by fascist ideology, does not envision gender equality, said Annie Raja, a veteran CPI leader and a long-time crusader for women’s reservation in parliament. Were it not for the linking of women’s reservation with delimitation, the prime minister could implement the quota immediately, she pointed out. “The proposed bill is not about enforcing women’s reservation but carrying out delimitation in such a manner that the BJP can secure elections,” she claimed. “They want to have an absolute majority, more than two-thirds majority.”

After Modi secured his third consecutive term as prime minister in 2024 at the age of 74 — with the wobbly support of regional allies — the BJP has accelerated its efforts to consolidate power in Parliament. Unlike in his previous terms, when it held an outright majority, the BJP’s presence in the Lok Sabha declined from 303 seats in 2019 to 240 seats in 2024. It now rules at the head of a coalition government with the support of 14 other parties.

“At present, the BJP may be the single largest party, but it is still a minority government in the Parliament, reliant on regional parties’ support to be in power,” said Hilal Ahmed, a political analyst. He added that it is crucial to note the reasons behind the BJP’s hegemony.

Over the last decade, the BJP’s unprecedented growth and Modi’s popularity have mainstreamed Hindu nationalism. As a political affiliate of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) – the 100-year-old organisation that advocates the establishment of a Hindu Rashtra, or a Hindu state – the BJP promotes a homogeneous Hindu identity, casting minorities as a hostile “enemy”.

The BJP’s brand of politics, driven by anti-Muslim sentiment, communal tensions and religious nationalism, has found strong resonance even among ideologically diverse and smaller regional parties. The opposition has accused the party of misusing central investigating agencies like the Directorate of Enforcement and the Income Tax Department to intimidate, weaken and lure away political opponents, besides the usual political manoeuvring. Ahmed said that, in the past decade, a large number of parliamentarians have defected from non-BJP parties to officially join the BJP. 

At the state level, the BJP has expanded its control from seven states in 2014 to 18 states today, often through alliances with regional parties. Along with its NDA partners, the BJP is in power in 21 of India’s 31 states and Union Territories, effectively ruling 72 percent of the country’s population. 

The biggest consequence of the BJP’s politics has been the weakening of regional parties in non-Hindi-speaking states. Since coming to national power in 2014, the BJP has either co-opted or erased the influence of once-powerful regional political parties such as the Biju Janata Dal in Odisha, the Assam Gana Parishad in Assam, and the Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party in Maharashtra – the latter two of which it has seen fracture, with factions moving across to the BJP’s side. The BJP’s strategy of fragmentation has weakened the opposition to such an extent that several states now lack a formal opposition leader. 

The latest assembly election results show gains in the BJP’s vote share across Assam and Kerala. In West Bengal, the BJP’s victory  has led to regime change, with the regional stalwart Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress cast out, while the party has retained control of Assam and Puducherry. At the same time, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) is not governing any Indian state for the first time in 50 years, while states like Tamil Nadu have seen the weakening of the Dravidian movement which often stood in opposition to the BJP.