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"These were local elections, and we never staked claim that we would be winning the states," Narendra Modi, general secretary of the BJP. Opposition parties, however, point out that the entire top leadership of the BJP, including the prime minister, home minister, and other union ministers, had campaigned for party candidates in all four states. When the elections were announced, Vajpayee had said the results would be a referendum on the NDA government, opponents noted.

"It was of course a referendum on the policies of the government," Doraiswamy Raja of CPI said. "The economic policies of the government had undergone a scrutiny by the people and their dissatisfaction reflected in the results."

Modi conceded that "it is true that the BJP and its allies in the NDA could not make any achievements in the election. But that does not mean that the results will affect the NDA's unity," he insisted. "The BJP-led government is still ruling the country."

Political analysts, however, attribute a dispute with one of the BJP's coalition partners to the party's poor election performance. The Samata party had threatened to withdraw its support to the ruling coalition if the BJP did not ensure the reinstallation of Samata's chief minister in Manipur state. Radhabinod Koijam was voted out by the 24 legislators of the BJP in defiance of instructions from national party leadership. The BJP has admitted that factionalism in the state unit has caused problems in Manipur.

Yogendra Yadav, fellow at the Center for the Study of Developing Societies in Delhi, believes the NDA made a tactical error by magnifying the significance of the state elections during campaigns. "In fact, this election did not involve NDA in a big way," he said. " … Had the NDA not made tall claims, it would not have been a negative result for the NDA."

Yadav said the election results have had an impact on the "internal dynamics" of the NDA. "It is very clear that the transfer of votes from the partners to the BJP did not work smoothly," he said, adding that in many states the BJP had no better choice than to align with the forces available.

Analysts say the election results indicated that the BJP has not reached a position in which it can contest local elections on its own and win the parliamentary election. In southern states, where it has had success it has "piggybacked" on regional parties.

The BJP had aligned with the AIADMK in 1996 and the Dravida Munnetra Kazagham (DMK) party in 1999 to gain a majority. In the southern state of Karnataka, the BJP joined hands with Janata Dal (United), which held power in the state from 1993 to 1998. In Andhra Pradesh, it has an alliance with the Telugu Desam Party, another regional party.

"Last election was the maximum the BJP could do," Raja insisted. "All their attempts to establish in [the] south, east, and west have failed. There is no state government, other than Gujarat, where BJP rules alone. It will not go beyond this."

The BJP also has suffered from the defection of some of its partners. In West Bengal, the BJP lost its ally, the Trinamul Congress, whose two leaders were cabinet ministers in Vajpayee's government. The party became uncomfortable with the BJP after forming an alliance against the CPI-M-led Left Front government in West Bengal and left the NDA weeks before the assembly election.

Trinamul Congress Chief Mamata Banerjee resigned from the cabinet, disassociated her party from the NDA and tried to tell her electorate that she had no ties with Hindu fanatics. The Trinamul Congress was soundly defeated, however, and many analysts believe that it would have fared better against the Left Front if it had stayed with the BJP. In West Bengal, the BJP's vote share shrunk from 11.1 percent in the most recent parliamentary elections to 6 percent in the state poll.

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June (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45