BJP defeated in Jharkhand state elections

Since December 2018, the BJP has lost power in five states: Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Jharkhand, despite the fact that Modi won a major victory for his party in May national elections. The BJP came to power in 2014, defeating the Congress party. JMM (Jharkhand Muki Morcha), ASJU (All Jharkhand Student Union), JVM (Jharkhand Vikas Morhca) are Jharkhand-based regional parties and RJD (Rashtrya Janta Dal) is a Bihar-based political party. These regional parties have won almost half seats in provincial assembly. Indian National Congress (INC) has gained in state elections by embracing regional parties. JMM and INC will be easily forming the state government (41/81 seats required for forming government). During Maharashtra State Elections, regional parties Shiv Sena and NCP (Nationalist Congress Party) joined hands with INC and formed government. BJP, despite being single largest party, had to sit in opposition.
The BJP’s parent organization known as the R.S.S. of which Modi is a member, is a Hindu nationalist party. Since the Indian state was founded, in 1947, the R.S.S. and its foot soldiers have rejected one of the country’s central ideals set forth by Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru: that the Indian state would be secular, and that the rights of all minorities would be protected. Since the R.S.S.’s founding, in 1925, its leaders have propounded the view that India is a Hindu nation, and that Hindus should reign over the country’s minorities. It was a Hindu nationalist and former member of the R.S.S., Nathuram Vinayak Godse, who murdered Gandhi, in 1948; he thought Gandhi was a dangerous appeaser of Muslims. As India’s communal divide worsens, Godse’s ghost is running free. But Modi is playing with fire, and India is on the path to perdition.
India’s economy is in doldrums. In spite of low commodity prices, the manufacturing sector was not able to grow. This is primarily due to contraction in volumes in the auto sector, decline in value of merchandise exports and slowdown in growth in other consumer sectors. Construction sector growth has fallen to a seven quarter low. After agriculture, construction is the second largest employer and has high impact backward and forward linkages with other sectors. This sector has been hit by demonetisation, changes in the Real Estate Regulation Act and a weakened funding scenario. Perhaps the only sliver of hope in the GDP data is the modest pick-up in agriculture sector growth. More than 3.5 lakh people have lost their jobs in the auto industry alone, nearly 60,000 diamond workers are currently jobless in Gujarat, prominent industrial cities like Jamshedpur saw 30,000 job losses.
The truth is, a combination of factors has pulled down India’s GDP growth to a six-year low of 4.5% in the July-September quarter, following on from 5% in the April-June quarter. India’s growth rate now ranks fifth, behind the economies of Vietnam, China, Egypt and Indonesia.