The ‘Modi Magic’ held sway over voters in 2022 too as the BJP won the assembly polls for a record seventh term in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state Gujarat and retained power for an unprecedented second term in the electorally most important state of Uttar Pradesh.

The saffron party also registered handsome victories in Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur though Himachal Pradesh and the cash-rich Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) slipped out of its hands during the year.

Prime Minister Modi personally led the BJP’s campaign in Gujarat where despite anti-incumbency factor the saffron party performed so well that it broke all records and won 156 of the 182-member Assembly seats, decimating the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The BJP’s seventh consecutive Assembly poll win in the state is its biggest since the founding of this state in 1960.

As the BJP gears up for the Assembly elections in 2023 and the Lok Sabha polls in 2024, while there is no decline in Prime Minister Modi’s popularity rating, the Opposition still appears in disarray.

Earlier this year, Yogi Adityanath took oath as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh for his second consecutive term.

During the electoral campaign for the Uttar Pradesh elections, Prime Minister Modi lauded Yogi Adityanath’s works and his coinage – ‘UP Plus Yogi Bahut Hai Upyogi’ – became quite popular.

In the 2017 Assembly elections, the BJP after winning the poll chose Adityanath as the Chief Minister.

The BJP has created other records with its successive victory in Uttar Pradesh. It is the first time that a party has returned to power in successive polls after 37 years.

This year, the saffron party also broke the tradition of alternate governments in Uttarakhand retaining the hill state against several odds.

In Goa, the BJP responded well to the challenge posed by the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party and came back to power.

This year, the BJP lost the Himachal Pradesh Assembly and the MCD polls.

The year 2023 is going to be politically crucial as several high-stakes political battles are set to take place that are likely to set the tone for 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

At least nine states, from the northeast to the west and south to the central part of the country, are due to witness assembly elections in 2023.

The election-bound states include Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Tripura, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Mizoram.

Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh are the two states where there is a Congress government.

In Rajasthan, the Congress wrested power from the BJP in 2018 by winning 100 seats in the 200-member state Assembly. The BJP, which got a thumping majority by winning 163 seats in 2013, could manage to get only 73 seats in 2018.

The state will again see a direct fight between the BJP and the Congress in 2023. Since 1990, the power in Rajasthan has been swinging between the BJP and the Congress.

In Chhattisgarh, the Congress won a thumping majority by winning 68 seats in the 90-member assembly uprooting the 15-year rule of the BJP in the last election. The BJP got only 15 seats. In the recently held Bhanupratappur by-poll, the ruling Congress retained the seat.

The election-bound 2023 can be considered as the semifinal ahead of the mega battle of 2024 Lok Sabha polls.