Economics

India’s Opposition Discovers Road Map to Defeating Modi in 2019

  • Modi’s BJP beaten in Karnataka poll by an opposition alliance
  • Development could lay groundwork for broader anti-BJP movement
Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg
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India’s divided opposition has seized on a new way to counter Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s powerful Bharatiya Janata Party: bringing national and regional rivals together to take on the ruling party.

The reversal of the BJP’s fortunes in the southern state of Karnataka -- where it won the most seats but was ousted by a coalition composed of the Congress party and the regional Janata Dal (Secular) party -- marks one more election loss at the hands of a united opposition. Despite a string of state poll victories, alliances have also thwarted Modi in recent Uttar Pradesh by-electionsBloomberg Terminal and in the 2015 Bihar state elections.