HOW INDIA VOTED IN 2022

For the BJP, 2022 was about sustaining power in its two key states. For the Cong, repeated failures have led to political experiments. And for the AAP, a win outside Delhi triggered national ambitions

When the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) look back at 2022, they will all have reasons to see it as a pivotal year that may shape their respective fortunes for years to come.

For the BJP, 2022 was when it won the two states most important to the party leadership and there was a sense of inevitability that crept in about its return to power in 2024.

For the Congress, 2022 was when repeated failures led to experiments, both at the level of organisational leadership and mass mobilisation. And for the AAP, 2022 was when the party's national ambitions finally expanded.

BJP: Sustaining the success

 For three elections in a row-2014, 2017 and 2019-the BJP had succeeded in UP. It defeated the Samajwadi Party (SP) when the latter was an incumbent; an SP-Congress alliance; and an SP-Bahujan Samaj Party alliance. But till this year, the BJP had not succeeded in retaining power at the state-level in UP; for that matter, no chief minister (CM) had succeeded in completing a full term in office and returning to power in the state's modern political history.

This year, the BJP won a comfortable majority on the back of the combined appeal of Narendra Modi and Yogi Adityanath; a social coalition of upper castes, backward communities and Dalit sub groups; a forceful campaign on the plank of law and order (or order at the cost of law, for the government has deployed extrajudicial mechanism to impose its writ); welfare, particularly free ration; and communal polarisation. A weak opposition helped.

The win shored up Modi's domestic capital in the post pandemic political context. It elevated Adityanath's stature in the party, and has given birth to his national ambitions. The next text for him, however, will be delivering UP's 80 seats in 2024 and retaining power in 2027.

If the year began with the UP win, it ended with the unprecedented Gujarat victory for BJP.