From seven states in 2014 to 21 today, BJP’s expansion reflects a deep and sustained political reach across India’s population and geography.
Bengal’s Biggest Political Reset: PM Modi Arrives in Kolkata for historic swearing-in of BJP government . (FILE PIC)
Twelve years ago, the BJP held power in seven states. Today, it governs 21, and the alliance it leads is responsible for the lives of roughly 72% of India’s 1.4 billion people. No party or coalition in this country has held this kind of federal ground since the Congress under Indira Gandhi, and even that comparison requires a caveat or two.
The May 4 results were the final piece of a puzzle the party had been assembling for two years. A historic first win in West Bengal, where the Trinamool Congress had seemed immovable for a decade and a half, combined with a third straight victory in Assam, took the NDA’s state tally to 21. That is the same number it briefly reached in early 2018 before circumstances turned against it. The difference, party leaders argue, is that the foundations this time are steadier.
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Spread across the map, the NDA’s footprint now covers approximately 72% of India’s land area. The Ganga, travelling from its source in the Uttarakhand hills through Uttar Pradesh and Bihar before emptying into the sea at West Bengal’s Ganga Sagar, runs entirely through NDA-governed states. That is not a coincidence of geography. It is the result of sustained political work across a decade.
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The party’s expansion since 2014 has followed a clear pattern. It started with the Hindi heartland, then pushed into the northeast through a combination of alliances and local organisational work, then steadily extended its reach into states that had long been considered beyond its grasp. Maharashtra, Odisha, and now West Bengal are the clearest examples of how far it has travelled from its original strongholds.
The 2018 high point did not survive the year. Three states, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, fell to the Congress in December of that year, and the NDA count slid to 16 states almost overnight. By 2020, a combination of further electoral reverses and the political disruptions caused by the pandemic had left the alliance governing just 13 states. There was serious talk in political circles of a party that had expanded too fast and too thin.
Then came 2024. The Lok Sabha results, 240 seats for the BJP against 303 in 2019, confirmed what the state losses had suggested: the party’s dominance was not automatic or permanent. The NDA retained the Centre with 293 seats and Narendra Modi began a third term, but the result reoriented priorities sharply.
What followed was less visible than the election campaigns but arguably more consequential. The party went back to basics, strengthening its booth-level presence, focusing sharply on local issues rather than national narratives, and tightening alliance management in states where it could not win alone. Maharashtra, Haryana, Bihar and Odisha came back into the fold one by one. By February 2026, the count was at 19 states and two Union Territories. The Bengal and Assam results in May pushed it over the line.
The number 21 carries historical weight. The Congress under Indira Gandhi governed a comparable number of states at the peak of her political authority in the late 1970s, and no party or alliance has matched that federal reach in the decades since. Until now.
The comparison is legitimate but not complete. Indira Gandhi’s Congress held that dominance through a centralised, largely uncontested party structure. The NDA’s 21-state count includes several governments that exist only because of regional partners: the JD(U) in Bihar, the TDP in Andhra Pradesh, and various northeast allies in Nagaland and Meghalaya, among others. Fifteen of the 21 states are governed by the BJP on its own strength. The remaining six require the alliance to hold.
The South also continues to resist. Kerala has voted the Congress-led UDF back to power. Tamil Nadu has produced one of its most dramatic electoral outcomes in years, with actor-politician Vijay’s party emerging as the largest force, leaving the BJP without a meaningful foothold in either state.
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The scale of NDA’s federal presence gives it real policy advantages. Welfare schemes, infrastructure decisions and administrative priorities can be aligned across a vast and largely contiguous stretch of Indian territory in ways that are simply not available to a more fragmented political force. The BJP has shown, repeatedly and in different states, that it can convert this kind of governance delivery into durable electoral support.
The risk is equally real. Twenty-one states mean 21 separate arenas of accountability. Voters who reward the party for visible delivery can just as quickly punish it for visible failure. The 2018 experience demonstrated that a tally built over years can erode within a single election season.
The party is governing more of India than any political force in living memory. That is an achievement by any measure. It is also, as the last time around made clear, a position that demands more than it rewards.
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