The juggernaut hasn’t only been halted, it has crashed

The second, perhaps more important, story is the rout of the BJP, in particular of Narendra Modi. Modi and his loyal accomplice-acolyte Amit Shah staked their all in the election, initially designed to capitalise on Modi’s “charisma”. Their strategy followed the recipe perfected for their Lok Sabha victory: polarise voters on caste, class and religious lines (by inciting anti-Muslim violence as in Muzaffarnagar); appeal to crass Hindu-supremacism, sectarian identities and jingoism; hype up the skewed, inequality-enhancing “Gujarat model” to win upper-caste-upper-class elite votes; and run a super-saturation-level corporate-funded campaign.

They should have known better: post-May, the strategy has produced diminishing returns in 50 by-elections, and more importantly, in the Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections. In Maharashtra, the BJP, aiming to win a majority, spurned an alliance with the Shiv Sena, but had to crawl back to it. In Jharkhand, its score plummeted from 12 out of 14 Lok Sabha seats to 37 out of 81 assembly seats. In Kashmir, the boastful “Plan 44+” failed.  

Let’s face it: the “Modi Magic” isn’t working. Not only has he failed to live up to his promise of “less government, more governance”, higher growth, and more jobs—a hugely important (if chimerical) lure deceptively propagated during the April-May campaign. All of Modi’s big-ticket schemes including “Swachh Bharat”, Jan Dhan Yojana and “smart cities” amount to empty sloganeering.

Worse, Modi is increasingly seen as pro-rich, elitist—the Rs 10-lakh suit will haunt him worse than 'India Shining' did the BJP—and anti-poor. His government has savagely cut the National Rural Employment Guarantee budget, and is preparing to severely restrict the Public Distribution System for food. Its new land acquisition ordinance is unabashedly pro-corporate and meant to displace millions of farmers without public hearings, and social or environmental impact assessment. It has already had a negative impact in outer Delhi.

Delhi’s poor and dispossessed punished Modi by overwhelmingly voting for AAP, which strongly supports pro-poor measures.