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The battle for 2029 has already begun—Neither UP nor LS will be a slam dunk for BJP

The BJP cannot count its chickens before they hatch, as the Congress is playing its cards far better than in 2024 or 2019.

It is just over a month since the last round of state assembly elections ended, but we are already back in election mode. The two-and-a-half years left before the next round of general elections are announced will be intensely political and confrontational. There may be no respite.

In 2027, we have the big contest in Uttar Pradesh, not to speak of Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur, followed later in the year by Himachal and Gujarat. In 2028, we will have Karnataka, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and, towards the end of the year, Telangana. Most of these are big states, and then there are the smaller north-eastern states of Nagaland, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram. The stakes are sky-high for all parties, especially the BJP and Congress. And we cannot forget the presidential elections, for which the BJP seems reasonably well-placed right now.

The election that will determine the immediate mood is Uttar Pradesh, where the BJP has to retain its majority for the third time and could face some anti-incumbency. The Congress and Samajwadi Party (SP) seem to be fully charged-up and will try their damnedest to create an upset here, just as they did in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The SP has already offered Rs 40,000 to underprivileged women, even as both SP and Congress are salivating at the possibility of putting the BJP on the backfoot over the alleged siphoning of funds at the Ram temple.

Uttar Pradesh is key not only because it sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha, but because what happens here will send signals on the national mood to the rest of India in 2029.

The BJP knows that it has to win UP if it is to stand a chance of getting a majority in 2029. Which is why it is aggressively pushing the women’s reservation and delimitation agenda by seeking a two-thirds majority in the Lok Sabha by enabling the breakup of the three parties that neutered the previous attempt in April 2026 along with the Congress: SP, Trinamool and DMK. Since then, the DMK may be more amenable to overtures from the BJP, having been ousted in Tamil Nadu. Trinamool has split vertically, and so has the Shiv Sena. Only SP has stood strong, possibly as it feels it is in with a chance in 2027.

The BJP is pushing both women’s reservation and delimitation because it will need to re-draw constituencies to make the........

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