India Needs Modi to Work With His Rivals
After a drubbing in state elections, the prime minister must cooperate with local leaders to beat back the pandemic.
Banerjee’s supporters were ecstatic.
Photographer: Diptendu Dutta/AFP/Getty Images
As anyone who has tried to invest in India can tell you, India’s states are as distinct from each other as European countries. Every now and then, India’s politicians are reminded of this as well. Prime Minister Narendra Modi certainly was earlier this week, when his all-conquering Bharatiya Janata Party fell short of expectations in state elections.
Of the four large states that had gone to the polls, Modi’s BJP was already in power in Assam and had made major inroads in West Bengal, where it was expecting a win. But the party lost heavily there as well as in the southern states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala — stopped in its tracks by three powerful contenders from regional parties whose politics emphasized their states’ local identities. In Bengal, for example, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee ran a campaign designed around the slogan “Bengal wants its own daughter,” a not-so-subtle dig at the BJP for its roster of carpetbaggers from north and west India.