India elections: Should Narendra Modi be worried?
AFP
India's ruling Hindu nationalist BJP has accepted defeat in key state elections. So is Congress, India's Grand Old Party, finally back in the reckoning?
The Congress has won in the states of Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh and fell just short of an outright majority in Madhya Pradesh in a neck-and-neck finish. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has congratulated the opposition "for their victories", saying his party accepts "the people's mandate with humility".
The central states of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh are widely regarded as BJP strongholds. To put the results in context, India's main opposition party has been consistently losing state elections since it was routed in the seismic 2014 elections which brought Mr Modi to power, winning less than 20% of the popular vote and securing 44 of the 543 seats. It is currently in power in only two large states.
The BJP won 62 of the 65 seats in these three key states in the last parliamentary elections. Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh are also part of a bellwether region - the Hindi-speaking heartland of India - which gave the BJP and its allies 203 of the 225 seats that they won in 2014.
EPA
So the Congress's robust performance - it gained 163 assembly seats here since 2013 state polls - is a shot in the arm for the party. It will bolster the morale of party workers, make it more acceptable to sceptical regional allies, and boost the image of its leader Rahul Gandhi. It will also send out the significant message that Mr Modi's BJP is not invincible and can be defeated. All this will help Congress gain some much-needed momentum in the run-up to next year's crucial general elections.
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