Citation :

Bikash Kumar Bora, "The Rising of the BJP System after the Congress System in Indian Politics: An Analysis," International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 117-129, 2026. Crossref, https://doi.org/10.14445/23942703/IJHSS-V13I3P111

Abstract

The Indian case of party system has undergone radical change since the death of the traditional Congress system of consensus and the extensive social formations based on the same during the period between 1952 and 1989. The entry of the BJP as the power centre in what Milan Vaishnav and Caroline Mallory call the fourth party system in India, which began in 2014, replaced the third-party system of fragmentation and coalition politics (1989-2014). This framework is credited with a six-pillar framework which comprises the existence of a big party, growing political centralization, declining competition, nationalization of the electoral politics, voter mobilization and reformations to targeted mobilization of caste levels, jati. The 2024 Lok Sabha election did not shatter these pillars, but weakened the BJP to 240 seats and compelled it to form coalitions; still, it failed to do so. The Pan-Indian presence was united, the share of the vote was retained, and the BJP was the irresistible gravitational force in the political world. The elections of 2025 in the state assembly of Delhi and Bihar brought out decisive confirmation of resilience. There was a resounding defeat of the Congress and limiting incumbent AAP to 22 seats, the BJP won 48 of the 70 seats in Delhi, and was back to power after 27 years. The NDA won 202 of 243 seats in the state of Bihar, with the BJP, the first single-largest party by a wide margin (89 seats). These outcomes strengthened the centralization, reduced competition (ENP was ruined in two-block elections), accelerated nationalization, and turned out the effective jati policies as the means of responding to the opposition caste discourses. On the basis of the analysis by Vaishnav and Mallory, the paper provides a calculable BJP System Dominance Index (BSDI) to quantify the transition. The outcome of 2025 is winning the BSDI to 0.89 -0.92, in the confirmation that the BJP system has been long lastingly confirmed, with the emergence of the successor to the Congress model, which is ideological integration, centralized control, and adaptive social engineering. The outcome also indicates the opposition space in the changing democracy of India.

Keywords

BJP Rise, Congress System Decline, Indian Politics, Electoral Competition, Political Centralization, Nationalization, Caste Mobilization, Bjp System Dominance Index, Coalition Politics, Jati Policies.

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