Modi, Shah Still In Poll Mode After Big Win, To Face Up To Gujarat, Tripura Challenges Ahead

The March 10 results of state assemblies held in five states of India has most political formations now analyzing the fallout on future polls except the BJP. Rather than sitting pretty on its laurels (read having bagged four out of the five states) Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched into election mode, reaching Gujarat while his second-in-command, Union Home Minister Amit Shah similarly, left for Tripura. While the Congress Working Committee met on Sunday (March 13, 2022) to draw poll inferences and un-wrangle intra-party differences, the same day Modi and Shah had already completed the first phase of their respective Gujarat and Tripura sojourns. Gujarat, where the BJP returned to power in the last assembly, although its tally dipped below 100 elected MLAs, due to the Patel (majority) conundrum, is high on Modi’s agenda prompting his yatra across the urban centers of the state. Similarly, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had sought to make her national presence felt and, deployed former Indira Gandhi era cabinet minister Santosh Mohan Dev’s daughter, Sushmita (TMC Rajya Sabha MP) in Manipur to no avail. While the BJP comfortably won the elections, 32 MLAs elected, Shah has launched into the Tripura political battlefield where another former Congress man Hemanta Biswas Sarma (now BJP CM of Assam) will place the key role for the BJP, yet again.