Narendra Modi’s Role in BJP’s Expansion Beyond Its Traditional Base

For decades, BJP’s electoral strength was concentrated in a fairly specific set of northern and western Indian states. That changed substantially over the course of Modi’s premiership. This article covers where and how that expansion happened, with the specific states and numbers involved.

The Traditional Base, Before 2014

Going into 2014, BJP’s core strength was concentrated in states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, and parts of the Hindi-speaking north and west of India, with comparatively limited presence in eastern India, the Northeast, and the south. Building a genuine national governing footprint required winning in territory well outside that traditional zone.

First-Time Chief Ministers, State by State

One clear marker of that expansion: Business Standard’s reporting counts BJP producing its first-ever Chief Minister in nine different states since Modi became Prime Minister in 2014, a list that includes Haryana in 2014 under Manohar Lal Khattar, Maharashtra the same year under Devendra Fadnavis, Assam in 2016 under Sarbananda Sonowal, Arunachal Pradesh the same year under Pema Khandu, Manipur in 2017 under N. Biren Singh, and Tripura in 2018 under Biplab Kumar Deb, each representing territory where the party had never previously led a state government.

The Northeast: A Genuine Strategic Shift

The Northeast cluster of these wins, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, and Tripura, is particularly significant because this region had historically been considered difficult territory for BJP, with local political dynamics, ethnic and regional party structures, and limited historical organisational presence all working against the party for decades. Winning first-time chief ministerships across four Northeastern states within a few years represented a genuinely new strategic direction rather than an incremental extension of existing strength.

West Bengal: The Hardest Fight

West Bengal represented a different kind of challenge, a large, politically significant state with deeply entrenched regional party dominance and historically minimal BJP presence. The party’s push there took years of sustained organisational investment, explicitly studying and adapting its opponent’s own grassroots techniques as covered in our separate article on BJP’s broader electoral strategy evolution, before eventually winning power in the state, with the Free Press Journal reporting a 2026 assembly election result of 207 out of 294 seats, a scale of victory that would have been difficult to imagine for the party in West Bengal a decade earlier.

The National Footprint Today

Taken together, a Business Standard (Bangladesh) feature on the party’s dominance cited BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla’s figures describing the party and its allies as governing roughly 21 to 22 state and union territory administrations at once, covering close to 78 percent of India’s population and around 72 percent of its geographic landmass, a level of national governing reach that stands in sharp contrast to the party’s considerably narrower footprint before 2014.

Where Expansion Has Not Succeeded

It’s worth noting this expansion hasn’t been universal. Deccan Herald’s coverage ahead of the 2019 election specifically flagged Kerala and Tamil Nadu as states where BJP was likely to “find it difficult to expand,” a prediction that has largely held up in the years since, with entrenched regional and left-leaning political traditions in those states presenting a different kind of resistance than the party has faced and eventually overcome elsewhere. A fair account of BJP’s expansion under Modi includes acknowledging these states as ongoing challenges rather than presenting the party’s growth as complete or uniform nationally.

The Pattern Behind Which States Resist

Looking at where expansion has and hasn’t worked, a rough pattern emerges: BJP has generally found more success in states with either an existing, if modest, Hindu nationalist organisational presence to build on, or in states with fragmented regional politics where a well-funded, well-organised national party could displace a weaker local incumbent. States like Kerala and Tamil Nadu instead have strong, entrenched regional or ideologically distinct political traditions of their own, whether the Left-led coalitions historically dominant in Kerala or the Dravidian-movement parties dominant in Tamil Nadu, that have proven more resistant to the organisational and campaign techniques that worked well elsewhere, suggesting the remaining expansion challenge is qualitatively different from the ones the party has already overcome rather than simply a matter of more time and resources.

Bottom Line

BJP’s geographic footprint has expanded substantially during Modi’s premiership, producing first-time chief ministers in nine states, including a previously difficult Northeast cluster and, eventually, West Bengal, while states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu have continued to resist the party’s growth, a reminder that this expansion, while real and significant, has not been evenly distributed across the entire country.

FAQ

Abhyudaya Verma