Why Polarization Damages Regional Parties More Than the Indian National Congress?

A critical paradox of the post-2024 electoral cycle is that intense national polarization is damaging regional parties far more than it is harming the Indian National Congress. While the Congress has suffered severe organizational and electoral setbacks over the past decade, its status as a nationwide brand provides it with structural resilience that regional parties lack. Because the Congress possesses a geographically diversified, pan-Indian presence, it can survive localized wipeouts and leverage alternating electoral cycles to reclaim power in states with a historically entrenched bipolar structure, such as Kerala or Himachal Pradesh.

Members of National Democratic Alliance.

Regional parties, conversely, are structurally bound to single states or narrow sub-regions. Once their home turf is compromised by a national party's ideological and organizational offensive, they have no geographic fallback options. Without access to state power, regional parties struggle to maintain their patronage networks, leaving them highly vulnerable to institutional decay, financial starvation, and state-level defections.

Furthermore, as the national opposition coalesces under the INDIA banner, the Congress is increasingly reclaiming its position as the principal alternative to the BJP. This long-run dynamic squeezes regional parties from both ends: the BJP targets their social bases through religious polarization and central welfare schemes, while the Congress absorbs their anti-BJP voters in its bid to build a consolidated national challenge.

As argued by the Economic and Political Weekly, this trend represents a net loss for federalism, as the decline of independent regional voices leads to a highly centralized, nationalized political discourse that sidelines state-specific developmental and cultural concerns.

Table 1: Macro-Electoral Contraction of Regional Parties vs. National Cohesion (2024–2026)

State	Regional Party	Election Year	Prior Assembly Seat Share	Post-Election Seat Share	Vote Share Transition & Strategic Impact
Haryana	Jannayak Janta Party (JJP)	2024	11.1% (10/90)	0.0% (0/90)	Vote share collapsed from 14.8% to 0.90%; Jat agrarian base completely absorbed by Congress.
Uttar Pradesh	Samajwadi Party (SP)	2024 (Bypolls)	30.7% (4/13 held pre-poll)	30.7% (4/13 won)	Net loss of 2 seats in high-stakes Nov bypolls; squeezed by intense majoritarian polarization.
Maharashtra	Shiv Sena (UBT)	2024	Factional split	6.9% (20/288)	Reduced to a junior partner within the MVA; unable to counter the nationalised Mahayuti wave.
Maharashtra	NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar)	2024	Factional split	3.5% (10/288)	Restricted to regional bastions; unable to withstand the BJP's organizational and fiscal machinery.
Bihar	Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)	2025	30.8% (75/243)	10.2% (25/243)	Mahagathbandhan collapsed; RJD fell to third place for the first time since 2010.
Delhi	Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)	2025	88.5% (62/70)	31.4% (22/70)	Suffered a loss of 40 seats; local governance model neutralized by intense national polarization.
Odisha	Biju Janata Dal (BJD)	2024	76.8% (113/147)	34.6% (51/147)	Ousted after 24 years; failed to win a single Lok Sabha seat; grassroots network facing collapse.
Telangana	Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS)	2024 (LS)	52.9% (9/17 LS)	0.0% (0/17 LS)	Vote share halved from 41.71% to 16.68%; state polarized into a strict BJP-Congress binary.
West Bengal	Trinamool Congress (TMC)	2026	73.1% (215/294)	27.2% (80/294)	Landslide defeat to BJP; party split post-election with 58 of 80 MLAs rebelling behind Ritabrata Banerjee.
Tamil Nadu	Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)	2026	56.8% (133/234)	25.2% (59/234)	Relegated to second place by TVK; CM Stalin defeated in Kolathur; first hung assembly in TN history.

Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance leaders in one frame.

Case Studies in Northern India: Agrarian and Caste-Based Regionalism Under Siege

The Jannayak Janta Party in Haryana (2024)

The political trajectory of Haryana represents a clear example of how intense voter polarization can rapidly transform a multi-party system into a rigid two-party state. In the 2019 assembly elections, the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP)—a regional splinter of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD)—positioned itself as the champion of Jat agrarian interests, winning 10 seats with a 14.8% vote share and becoming the kingmaker in a coalition government with the BJP.

However, the JJP's decision to govern with the BJP alienated its core agrarian, anti-BJP Jat voter base. When the coalition collapsed in March 2024, the JJP found itself caught in a highly polarized crossfire. In the October 2024 assembly elections, the electorate consolidated into two distinct camps: Jat and agrarian voters consolidated heavily behind the Congress in an attempt to unseat the government, while non-Jat communities rallied behind the BJP.

As a result, the JJP's vote share plummeted to a negligible 0.90%, and all but one of its candidates, including former Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala, lost their election deposits. Using the Laakso-Taagepera method to analyze the Effective Number of Parties (ENOP), Haryana's political landscape transformed dramatically: more than 67 of the state's 90 assembly seats became strictly bipolar contests where only the BJP and Congress were viable contenders.

The combined vote share of the JJP and INLD alliances shrank from over 21% in 2019 to just 7% in 2024. This shows that in highly polarized environments, the agrarian regional middle ground is completely hollowed out, with its voters absorbed by the two national poles.

The Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh (2024)

The experience of the Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh illustrates the highly volatile nature of the political space occupied by regional parties in the post-2024 era. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the SP achieved a historic victory as part of the INDIA alliance, winning 37 of the 63 seats it contested and increasing its vote share to 33.59%. This success was built on a strategic "PDA" (Pichda, Dalit, Alpasankhyak) social coalition, combining backward castes, Dalits, and Muslims through direct grassroots outreach and localized campaigning.

However, this national-level success did not translate into a stable regional hegemony. In the subsequent assembly by-elections held in May and November 2024, the political landscape shifted back toward intense majoritarian polarization. Led by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's highly polarizing slogan "Batenge toh katenge" ("Divided we perish"), the BJP mobilized a strong counter-consolidation of the Hindu vote.

In the November by-elections, the BJP-led NDA won 7 out of 9 seats, including Kundarki—a constituency with a 65% Muslim population where the SP candidate Md. Rizwan lost his deposit to the BJP's Thakur Ramveer Singh, who won by over 1.28 lakh votes. The SP was restricted to retaining only its family stronghold of Karhal and Sisamau, with its victory margins drastically reduced.

This by-election setback demonstrated a key structural vulnerability: the SP’s earlier general election success was highly dependent on the national coalition framework, where the Congress played a crucial role in mobilizing Dalit and Muslim votes behind the shared INDIA banner. When stripped of this national coalition framing in state-level contests, the SP struggled to counter the BJP’s majoritarian mobilization, showing how regional parties can quickly lose ground when elections are fought on highly polarized, nationalized lines.

Case Studies in Western India: Factionalism and Subservience of Regional Identity

Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) in Maharashtra (2024)

Historically, Maharashtra’s political ecosystem was dominated by powerful regional identity markers, famously marshaled by the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). However, the institutional and political splits engineered within both parties between 2022 and 2023 fundamentally disrupted these regional identity blocks.

The November 2024 assembly elections confirmed that these splits did not lead to a recovery of regional pride; instead, they facilitated a wholesale transfer of regional resources to the national poles. The BJP-led Mahayuti coalition achieved a landslide victory, winning 235 out of 288 seats. Crucially, the regional factions that remained within the national opposition alliance (Maha Vikas Aghadi)—namely the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) and the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar)—were reduced to minor players :

• Shiv Sena (UBT): Managed to win only 20 seats, despite contesting 95, failing to establish its claim as the legitimate voice of Marathi identity.

  
  

• NCP (SP): Secured a mere 10 seats, demonstrating that Sharad Pawar's regional patronage network could no longer withstand the highly organized, resource-rich campaign of the national BJP machinery.

  
  

For the first time in six decades, no opposition party in Maharashtra won the minimum number of seats required to claim the position of the Leader of the Opposition, signaling a total collapse of the regional opposition framework in favor of a dominant-party system led by the national BJP.

Case Studies in Eastern India: The Fall of Unaligned Fortresses

The Biju Janata Dal in Odisha (2024)

For 24 years, Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal (BJD) maintained a highly stable, welfare-oriented regime in Odisha by championing a distinct regional identity and staying carefully unaligned with national coalitions. However, this era of unaligned regional dominance came to an end in June 2024. The BJP won 78 seats in the 147-member assembly, securing an outright majority, while the BJD fell to 51 seats.

This transition was driven by several key factors:

• The Squeezing of the Non-Aligned Space: The BJD’s strategy of extending issue-based support to the BJP-led Union government while remaining structurally outside the NDA created ideological confusion among its supporters. Voters seeking a clear national alternative consolidated behind the BJP.

  
  

• Demographic Transitions: Aspirational youth and first-time voters, who made up nearly 29% of the electorate in 2024, rejected the BJD’s bureaucratic governance model. Surveys indicated that over 63% of first-time voters favored a leadership change, viewing the BJP as a more promising platform for job creation and entrepreneurship than the BJD’s traditional welfare schemes.

  
  

• Existential Defections: Following its defeat, the BJD faced immediate organizational challenges. Without state patronage, regional and grassroots leaders began defecting in waves to the ruling BJP, raising serious questions about the party’s long-term viability in a highly polarized environment.

Table 2: The BJD-to-BJP Shift in Odisha (2019 vs. 2024)

Metric	2019 Assembly Election	2024 Assembly Election	Shift & Implications
BJD Seats Won	112 / 147	51 / 147	Loss of 61 seats; ousted from power.
BJP Seats Won	23 / 147	78 / 147	Gained 55 seats; formed independent govt.
BJD Vote Share	44.71%	40.22%	Fell by 4.49%; core support base eroded.
BJP Vote Share	32.49%	40.07%	Rose by 7.58%; successful Hindu consolidation.
BJD Lok Sabha Seats	12 / 21	0 / 21	Completely wiped out at the national level.

The Trinamool Congress in West Bengal (2026)

Perhaps the most consequential example of regional contraction occurred in West Bengal during the April 2026 assembly elections. Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC), which had governed the state since ending 34 years of Left rule in 2011, suffered a historic defeat. The BJP achieved a landslide victory, winning 207 of the 294 seats with a 46% vote share, while the TMC was reduced to just 80 seats and a 41% vote share—a near-total reversal of the 2021 results.

This landslide victory was driven by several structural factors:

• Erosion of the Consolidated Muslim Vote: Traditionally a reliable voting block for the TMC, Muslim support fragmented significantly in 2026. In Murshidabad district, where Muslims comprise roughly two-thirds of the population, the TMC's seat tally dropped from 20 out of 22 seats in 2021 to just 9 in 2026. Across the 32 assembly seats where the Muslim population exceeds 50%, the TMC's hold fell from all 32 seats in 2021 to 23 in 2026, as alternative parties like the Left and the Indian Secular Front split the vote.

  
  

• Nationalised Welfare Counter-Offensive: The BJP effectively countered the TMC's flagship local welfare schemes. In its manifesto, the BJP promised ₹3,000 per month to women under a new federal scheme, doubling the ₹1,500 offered under the TMC's local Lakshmir Bhandar scheme. This successfully neutralized the TMC’s core support base among women voters.

  
  

• The Impact of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR): The Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision of the electoral rolls resulted in the deletion of roughly 9 million names due to logical discrepancies. These deletions were disproportionately concentrated in Muslim-majority constituencies. Data shows that in 105 seats won by the BJP, the number of deleted voters actually exceeded the BJP’s margin of victory, directly impacting the final seat distribution.

  
  

The political consequences of this defeat have been severe. Barely a month after the results, a massive rebellion split the TMC. Fifty-eight of the TMC’s 80 elected MLAs defected to a rival faction led by expelled leader Ritabrata Banerjee, who was subsequently recognized by the speaker as the official Leader of the Opposition. This rapid post-poll collapse illustrates how regional parties built around single charismatic leaders are highly vulnerable to internal collapse once they lose power and access to state resources.

Case Studies in the Capital: The Limits of Localized Governance-Centric Populism

The Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi (2025)

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) once represented a powerful alternative to traditional national party dominance by focusing on governance-centric populism, local service delivery, and welfare schemes in Delhi. Yet, the February 2025 Delhi assembly election demonstrated that even this governance model is vulnerable to intense national polarization.

In a dramatic turnaround, the BJP won a clear majority with 48 seats (47.15% vote share), while the AAP's seat count dropped from 62 to just 22 seats (43.57% vote share). This election shows that when national security, anti-corruption narratives, and ideological mobilization are combined, local welfare delivery schemes lose their ability to shield regional parties.

The Delhi electorate consolidated into two clear blocks, completely eliminating the Congress (which won zero seats) and leaving the AAP with a severely reduced footprint, turning the city-state into a highly competitive bipolar national battlefield.

Case Studies in the Southern Periphery: Structural Shift and Disruptive Realignment

While Southern India is often viewed as a resilient bastion of regionalism, the post-2024 electoral cycle reveals that even this region is undergoing major structural transformations.

The Bharat Rashtra Samithi in Telangana (2024)

The decimation of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS)—the party that led the movement for Telangana's statehood—highlights how quickly regional parties can lose ground in the South. After losing the 2023 assembly elections to the Congress, the BRS was completely wiped out in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, failing to win a single seat.

Its vote share collapsed from 41.71% to just 16.68%. The political space in Telangana split into a direct national bipolar contest, with the Congress and the BJP winning 8 seats each, leaving the BRS sidelined in its own state.

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu (2026)

In Tamil Nadu, the April 2026 assembly elections produced an extraordinary upset, though it followed a different path than in the north. Rather than a national party takeover, the state's traditional bipolar Dravidian framework (DMK vs. AIADMK) was disrupted by a new regional force: the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), founded by actor C. Joseph Vijay.

The TVK won 108 seats with a 34.92% vote share, running an outsider campaign focused on younger voters and women. This surge severely damaged the established parties:

• The DMK's Contraction: The ruling DMK’s seat count fell from 133 to 59. In a major upset, outgoing Chief Minister M. K. Stalin lost his seat in Kolathur, a constituency he had won three times consecutively.

  
  

• The AIADMK's Decline: The AIADMK was reduced to 47 seats, while its national ally, the BJP, won only a single seat.

  
  

While Tamil Nadu resisted direct national party dominance, the 2026 election created the state's first hung assembly. This historic result broke a 59-year streak of alternating rule between the DMK and the AIADMK, showing that even deep-seated Dravidian hegemony is vulnerable to rapid structural realignment.

Table 3: Southern Political Landscape Realignment (Telangana & Tamil Nadu)

Parameter	Telangana (2024 Lok Sabha)	Tamil Nadu (2026 Assembly)	Realignment Dynamic
Leading Regional Force	Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS)	Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)	Traditional regional forces faced severe electoral contraction.
Pre-Election Seat Share	52.9% (9 / 17 seats)	56.8% (133 / 234 seats)	Both parties held comfortable majorities pre-poll.
Post-Election Seat Share	0.0% (0 / 17 seats)	25.2% (59 / 234 seats)	BRS completely wiped out; DMK relegated to second place.
Electoral Dynamic	Direct Bipolar (BJP vs. Congress)	Fragmented Tri-polar (TVK vs. DMK vs. AIADMK)	BRS squeezed by national polarization; DMK disrupted by a new regional actor.

Institutional Mechanisms Accelerating Bipolar Consolidation

The "One Nation, One Election" (ONOE) Threat

The proposed constitutional amendment to mandate simultaneous elections for the Lok Sabha and state assemblies represents a major structural challenge to regional parties.

Empirical studies show that simultaneous elections often trigger a strong "coat-tail effect".

Voters, faced with simultaneous national and local campaigns, are statistically more likely to align their state preferences with their national preferences. This dynamic favors large national parties with significant media and financial resources, while making it much harder for smaller regional parties to keep the focus on local issues.

Fiscal Centralization and the Nationalisation of Welfare

The Union government’s highly effective "Labharthi" (beneficiary-centric) welfare model has transformed how voters view public assistance. By delivering direct benefit transfers, subsidized housing, and food security directly from the central government, the BJP has built a direct relationship with voters that bypasses state-level patronage networks.

State governments, increasingly constrained by central fiscal regulations and the GST framework, often lack the resources to match these federal welfare programs. This fiscal imbalance leaves regional parties struggling to compete, as their local welfare offerings are frequently countered by larger national promises, as seen in West Bengal and Bihar.

Affective Polarization and Identity Politics

Political polarization in India has evolved beyond simple policy debates into a deeper "affective polarization". Driven by targeted social media campaigns, partisan news coverage, and highly structured identity narratives, voter behavior is increasingly aligned with broad ideological markers like nationalism and religion rather than local issues.

In highly polarized states, vote margins correspond directly to how effectively parties can mobilize these broad identity narratives. This environment leaves little room for regional parties, whose traditional strength lay in mediating local caste differences and local grievances.

The Structural Trajectory of India's Democratic Federalism

The post-2024 electoral cycle represents a major turning point in India's political history. The era of highly fragmented regional coalitions is giving way to a more consolidated, bipolar national party system. Autonomous regional parties are facing severe pressures. To survive, they must adapt to several new realities:

• Subservience or Decimation: Regional parties can no longer easily survive as independent third forces. They are increasingly forced to align with either the BJP or Congress coalitions, which often leads to the gradual absorption of their voter bases by their larger national partners.

  
  

• Institutional Vulnerability: Regional parties built around single family dynasties are highly vulnerable to internal splits and rapid post-poll collapse once they lose power, as demonstrated by the post-election crisis within the TMC in West Bengal.

  
  

• The Southern Resilience: While the South remains more resistant to direct national party takeovers, the dramatic rise of the TVK in Tamil Nadu and the complete collapse of the BRS in Telangana show that Southern regional parties are also vulnerable to rapid changes in voter preferences.

  
  

Ultimately, the contraction of the regional political space reduces the diversity of state-level representation in national policy-making. As the political landscape becomes more bipolar, the challenge for Indian democracy will be to ensure that the rich diversity of its regions continues to find effective expression within a highly centralized and polarized national discourse.