The crucial Uttar Pradesh test of the BJP’s hegemony

The political dominance of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which appeared almost unassailable after 2014, is beginning to show cracks. The 2024 general election was an important setback: the party lost its parliamentary majority and had to depend on its allies to form the government. Since then, disillusionment has acquired greater political salience through youth protests, rising prices, unemployment and failures of governance, particularly irregularities in the education and examination systems. To these can be added the defeat of the Constitutional Amendment Bill on delimitation and women’s reservation in April, the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) protests that led to the resignation of the then Union Education Minister and the complete washout of the monsoon session of Parliament, as both the Prime Minister and Home Minister stayed away.