Elections to the Rajya Sabha are biennial, and the Electoral College includes elected members of the lower house of Parliament, Lok Sabha and state legislatures. As of now, the BJP does not have a majority in the Rajya Sabha and a further slide in its numbers would affect its legislative plans.
The latest state to show losses in power for BJP was Jharkhand, where it was unseated by a provincial party, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (Jharkhand Liberation Front)-Indian National Congress alliance.
The BJP narrowly managed to retain power in northern Haryana in October, with the support of a newly formed regional party, while it lost power in western Maharashtra over spats with its long-term ally the regional Shiv Sena over power-sharing.
Earlier in 2019, the BJP lost power in central Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and western Rajasthan to the national opposition Indian National Congress. The saffron party, as BJP is called in India, now governs a mere 35 per cent of the landmass, in comparison to the over 71 per cent it ruled during its peak in 2017.
Netizens thanked those who voted the BJP out, for what they believe was the economic ruin of the country and for enforcing legislation which is believed to erode the communal harmony of the country.
The BJP has been riding a roller coaster of political triumphs and defeats for the past five years. From holding power in only seven state assemblies in 2014 to a staggering 21 by 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with his Man Friday – Amit Shah, party President and currently Federal Home Minister, swept the nation with a huge majority to rule for a second term in May.
While the party was voted back to power at the national level, its stock started slipping away at provincial level, mostly due to issues specific to those states.
The only comfort for the party was that it managed to regain power in the southern state of Karnataka, where political re-alignment brought down the alliance government headed by H.D. Kumaraswamy of regional Janata Dal (Secular), who lost a no-confidence motion in July.