Anti-incumbency used to be a key theme of Indian politics. One party would fail to deliver, followed by another which would subsequently suffer the same fate at the polls.
India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seems to have found a formula to circumvent this, winning four out of five state elections last month, including retaining power in India’s largest state, Uttar Pradesh, which had not re-elected its state government for more than three decades.
This success came despite an economic slowdown which predated the pandemic and was exacerbated by it – both unemployment and inflation are major concerns while India’s currency is at a record low.
