The year 2022 was replete with political drama: sudden shifts in power, theatrical campaigns and stunning electoral outcomes. At the end of it, Brand Modi appeared strong, the Aam Admi Party (AAP) had gathered force and the Congress, by contrast, had lost ground.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) easily overcame anti-incumbency in the eighth year of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, despite the social and economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic. It retained five of the six states it had held at the beginning of the year, with convincing majorities.
Yogi Adityanath emerged as the BJP’s new hero figure, scripting history by becoming the first Uttar Pradesh chief minister in four decades to lead his party to a majority. It was a feat eclipsed only by the BJP’s seventh consecutive victory in Gujarat, with a record 52.5 percent vote share.
The ruling NDA made another claim to history by anointing Droupadi Murmu as President of India, making her the first member of a tribal community to hold the nation’s highest office. Her victory was a foregone conclusion, particularly as a majority of Shiv Sena MLAs had decamped to the NDA a few weeks earlier, bringing down Maharashtra’s Maha Vikas Agadhi (MVA) government.
The NDA gained Maharashtra only to lose Bihar. Fearful of being ousted, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar walked out of the NDA yet again, to form a government with the support of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). The politics of Bihar became a 2015 redux, with the difference that the mahagathbandhan was now pitted against a stronger BJP.
Arvind Kejriwal’s star rose inexorably in 2022, establishing the Aam Aadmi Party as a player on the national stage. Without a single seat in the Lok Sabha, it managed to shed the ‘Dilli ki party’ tag and end the year as a national party by securing a six percent-plus vote share in four states.
After coming to power in Punjab by crushing the grand old party, it spent the year nibbling into the Congress vote share in the state and local body elections. Despite losing its lone Lok Sabha seat (vacated by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann) to the Shiromani Akali Dal (A) and failing to open its account in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, AAP emerged as a long-term threat to the Congress.
In Gujarat, it secured 12.92 percent votes at the expense of the Congress. Likewise, in Delhi, it won the municipal elections by eating into the Congress vote share. In Goa, it managed only two MLAs, but with the en masse defection of Congress MLAs to the BJP, found itself in a position to occupy the Opposition space.
The Congress looked distinctly anaemic by the year-end, having suffered a net loss of over a hundred assembly seats. Massive infighting in Punjab and Uttarakhand and mass defections in Goa had scuppered its chances at the outset. It was decimated in Manipur and its severe losses in Gujarat overshadowed its lone victory in Himachal Pradesh.
In the first half of the year, the party seemed more concerned with the dynamics of its presidential elections than the legislative polls. Frustrated by the state of affairs, Congress stalwart Ghulam Nabi Azad quit the party ahead of the elections. 80-year-old Mallikarjun Kharge took over the reins with the blessings of the Gandhi family, after winning a one-sided contest against the Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor.
Thereafter, the Congress focused its attention on ensuring the success of Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra, a five-month march intended to bring the grand old party in touch with citizens across the country. Meanwhile, the party went down without a fight in Gujarat, winning less than 10 percent of the assembly seats. Likewise, in the Delhi municipal polls, its seat share was less than four percent.
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra lost her sheen when the Congress was reduced to rubble in UP despite her high-voltage campaign. She regained some equity after the Congress victory in Himachal Pradesh, where she had campaigned for the party.
Rahul Gandhi forged a new path and a new ‘man of the people’ image for himself, trekking all the way from Kanyakumari to Delhi. Theatrics abounded, with Gandhi stopping at places of worship along the way, and seizing every opportunity to attack the BJP’s ‘divisive’ politics. Entering the capital on Christmas eve with a hundred-day growth of beard, he met with a rousing reception. The Yatra will wind its way through UP, Punjab and Jammu & Kashmir in the new year.
The stage is set for the 2023 assembly elections in Karnataka, the North-East, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Telangana. While the Congress hopes to leverage the Yatra into votes in the upcoming polls (where AAP is not a factor), the BJP will again bank on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. And at the moment, it’s advantage BJP.
Bhavdeep Kang is a freelance writer and author of ‘Gurus: Stories of India’s Leading Babas’ and ‘Just Transferred: The Untold Story of Ashok Khemka’. A journalist since 1986, she has written extensively on national politics. Views expressed are personal.
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