For being such an important part of the party’s unprecedented success in 2019 (with BJP winning 303 Lok Sabha seats, its best performance ever, followed distantly by the Congress with 52 seats in second spot), he’s on our cover. Now that the elections are done and dusted, we wanted to pick his brains on what makes the BJP tick in the modern day Indian political landscape. India’s advantage is that it has a sizeable chunk of young voters, many of whom are part of the work force that strengthens a nation. They are loud, aspirational and duly resent a sense of entitlement, particularly displayed by dynastic families. They give vent to their feelings unabashedly on social media, not just in English and Hindi, but their native tongues as well. If there were no real visible changes on the ground this chunk of opinionated voters would not have taken kindly to Mr Modi and backed him at the ballot box for a second term. As it moves forward to wrest back states it had lost, and retain those it rules, the BJP’s task is cut out. “Trust is not something that’s given because you win an election, it’s something you have to earn,” American politician Tom Perez says. It is trust quotient that the party will be looking to scale up even further. That will mean further gains for the BJP.

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