India election: Modi’s BJP failure to retain Faizabad reveals sea change in country’s politics

By Smytta Yadav, University of Sussex

Narendra Modi was sworn in as India’s prime minister on June 9 for a historic third term. But his power and mandate stand unexpectedly diminished. His Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) fell short of an absolute majority and has had to rely on coalition partners to form the government.

The losses were particularly humbling in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, and especially in the holy city of Ayodhya. Uttar Pradesh is home to more than 257 million people and has the most parliamentary seats of any state in the country. In 2014, when Modi first came to power, people in this state formed the core of the BJP’s support.

A few months before the election, Modi inaugurated a controversial new Hindu temple in Ayodhya at the site of a mosque demolished more than 30 years ago. The political motives were clear. Modi turned the consecration of the temple into a massive national event, aiming to galvanise his conservative Hindu support base.

Ayodhya even underwent a US$3 billion (£2.3 billion) government-funded transformation to turn it into what some Hindu nationalist leaders have called a “Hindu Vatican”.

However, voters in Faizabad constituency, which includes Ayodhya, rejected the BJP – and resoundingly at that. The candidate for the opposition Samajwadi party, Awadhesh Prasad, defeated the BJP’s nominee, Lallu Singh, by a margin of almost 55,000 votes.

Throughout the election campaign, Modi spoke at length about the importance of the temple in Ayodhya. He hailed the opening of the temple as fulfilment of “the dream that many have cherished for years”.

But people wanted more than just words. The BJP’s defeat in Faizabad shows that a disregard for local issues and the use of astute, inclusive political tactics may result in changes to voter loyalty, even in areas of historical significance to India’s majority Hindu population.

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