Recently in the newspaper, I found a column by Neerja Chowdhury about how regional parties are increasingly being targeted, especially those in the opposition (The Indian Express).

I found myself agreeing more than disagreeing with her column, even though I didn't fully agree with certain reasons she put forth for this phenomenon. Regional parties like the AAP, the TMC, and, until most recently, the Shiv Sena (UBT) have seen defections in 2026. In April, Raghav Chadha, along with other Rajya Sabha MPs, jumped camp to the BJP after the AAP, in a seemingly power-insecure move, attempted to sideline the increasingly popular youth politician. In June, 58 of the TMC's 80 MLAs met West Bengal Assembly Speaker Rathindra Bose to submit letters supporting Ritabrata Banerjee as their Legislative Leader. This action led to the first split in the party's decades-long history. And now, Shiv Sena (UBT) supremo Uddhav Thackeray is staring at the second split his party has seen in four years. The earlier split, too, ironically enough, was said to be a BJP-sponsored operation.

But it's not limited to splits and defections, though they are the louder, more visible alarms ringing across the benches of regional parties. Regional parties have increasingly been sidelined through means other than collective floor-crossing.

Betrayals, allies, and defeat

The BJP does have a hand in the shrinking space for regional representation. But it's not only through engineering splits. Take the tripartite example of the JD(U), the JD(S), and the BJD.

Two of these are allies of the BJP. The third is someone the BJP defeated in its own state. Let's understand each of them one by one.

JD(S)'s dilemma

The Janata Dal was once a powerful party that had a major say in national coalition politics. In 1996, its chief, H.D. Deve Gowda, became Prime Minister. But by 1999, the party was facing an ideological civil war. A senior faction of the party wanted to team up with the right-wing BJP under the NDA. Deve Gowda strongly objected, arguing that it went against their core socialist values. Furious, Deve Gowda walked out and created his own party, adding a very deliberate word to its name: Secular. The brand-new JD(S) chose the symbol of a female farmer carrying paddy on her head, anchoring its identity to farmers, the rural working class, and the powerful Vokkaliga community of southern Karnataka.

The JD(S) quickly mastered a unique political skill: becoming the kingmaker. In Karnataka's highly competitive political landscape, the two giants - the Indian National Congress and the BJP - frequently fell short of a majority. The JD(S) sat perfectly in the middle, holding the balance of power. In 2004, they shook hands with the Congress to form a coalition government in Karnataka. But in just 20 months, Deve Gowda's son, H. D. Kumaraswamy, pulled off a political coup. He broke the alliance with the Congress and teamed up with the BJP instead, taking the Chief Minister's chair for himself.

Furthermore, in 2018, following another hung assembly, the Congress basically handed the state to the JD(S) just to keep the BJP out of power. Kumaraswamy became Chief Minister yet again, despite his party having the fewest seats of the three.

However, all these fragile coalitions were plagued by infighting, dramatic politics, and floor-crossing. By 2019, their government collapsed yet again. And in the 2023 Karnataka elections, a Congress government came into power. In the same elections, the JD(S)'s seat count was almost halved. Facing an existential crisis, they had to once again - ironically - ally with the BJP. The move caused a massive rift. The party's state unit in Kerala flat-out refused to ally with the BJP, sparking an internal rebellion against the national leadership.

The JD(S) started out as a regional party that could punch above its weight. But now it is positioned as a declining party. It is now nothing but a junior partner in a massive national alliance.

But this is only the first of the stories where even the BJP's own allies were turned into cogs in a bigger machine.

Turncoat and Tragedy

The 1990s were a turbulent period for Bihar politics. Back then, it was Lalu's Raj. People even associated that period with "Gunda Raj", "Jungle Raj", or the rule of lawlessness.

Nitish Kumar and Lalu Yadav were familiar to each other even then. They were part of the Janata Dal initially, but when Nitish Kumar co-founded the Samata Party to split from Lalu Yadav, Nitish worked as its chief strategist. Disillusioned by the lawlessness and lack of development in Bihar, he decided to fight against Lalu. With many mergers involving the remnants of the old Janata Dal, the Janata Dal (United) was born.

In 2005, the JD(U)-BJP alliance swept into power and Nitish Kumar became the Chief Minister of Bihar. He eventually earned the nickname "Sushasan Babu". He cracked down on crime, built a vast network of roads, and introduced a wildly popular scheme giving free bicycles to schoolgirls. He was lauded as a visionary development icon.

In 2013, however, the BJP chose Narendra Modi as its PM candidate. Nitish Kumar opposed this because his party claimed a secular identity and feared losing its Muslim base. Nitish eventually broke the 17-year alliance with the BJP. The JD(U), however, lost heavily in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Nitish resigned, putting a political ally in the CM chair, who was eventually removed by him. In 2015, however, Nitish shook hands with his bitter, lifelong rival, Lalu Prasad Yadav. Together with the Congress, they formed the Mahagathbandhan and crushed the BJP in the 2015 state elections.

Then came a series of dizzying shifts. Nitish went back to the BJP, then back to the RJD-Congress alliance, and then back again to the BJP. For his dizzying flips, he earned the nickname "Paltu Ram" (The Turncoat). However, while alliances changed around him, he remained constant as the CM.

However, his and his party's potential decline came in the 2025 elections. He didn't lose; he won spectacularly - almost too spectacularly. The NDA alliance in Bihar secured over 200 seats in the Bihar assembly, reducing the RJD-Congress alliance to less than 40 seats. However, now the BJP held the most leverage over his party, which had played kingmaker effectively over so many years. Soon he resigned from his CM chair and was subsequently sworn in as a Rajya Sabha member. With Nitish heading to Delhi, the JD(U) paved the way for its ally, the BJP, to take the Chief Minister's seat in Bihar. Though he might have chosen this for himself, it's his party's future that is more uncertain. Whether the JD(U) remains a viable force with a clear purpose remains to be seen.

It is often rumored that the so-called Paltu Ram had national-level, Prime Ministerial ambitions. To see his political career limited to a single state, with his party ultimately left at the mercy of a dominant national one - an ambition limited by circumstance - is the tragedy of Nitish Kumar.

The Fall of Patnaik

The bastion of Biju Patnaik was the state of Odisha. Like nearly all Indian states, it was initially dominated by the Congress, and Biju served as its Chief Minister as well. He had been a fighter pilot in WWII. He was a towering leader, winning one term in 1961 with the Congress, and another in 1990 with the Janata Dal. He had also fought against the Emergency and was one of the first to be arrested along with other opposition leaders. In the 1990 state assembly election, the Janata Dal won a two-thirds majority, which saw Biju Patnaik serve as the Chief Minister of Odisha for the second time until 1995. He passed away in 1997.

Following his death, the state unit of the Janata Dal began to splinter into chaotic factions, with everyone looking for someone to fill the shoes of the late leader. Enter Naveen Patnaik. Not only did he take the reins of the party unit, but he also split from the Janata Dal to form the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and subsequently won the state assembly elections in 2000. At that time, the BJD was strategically allied with the BJP to defeat the Congress.

What followed was a stable, 24-year reign of the incorruptible, welfare-oriented Naveen Patnaik. During his tenure, Odisha transformed from a disaster-prone state into a global model for highly effective cyclone and disaster management. Millions of women were empowered through the Mission Shakti self-help groups, creating a fiercely loyal female voter base. Bhubaneswar was turned into a recognized sports hub due to its world-class hockey stadiums.

In 2009, Naveen broke the alliance with the BJP following seat-sharing disagreements and communal tensions. Political commentators spelled doom for him in that year's elections; instead, the BJD went solo and won a resounding majority on its own. Even in 2014 and 2019, while the BJP was sweeping states in massive national waves, the BJD held its regional ground solidly.

However, no empire lasts forever. Over time, Naveen Patnaik leaned heavily on trusted bureaucrats to run the administration. A former IAS officer, V.K. Pandian, became the Chief Minister's closest aide and the de facto face of the party's campaign. In the 2024 elections, the opposition launched an aggressive, highly coordinated campaign. They fiercely targeted the bureaucracy's immense influence, framing the election as a battle for Odia Asmita (Odia pride and self-esteem). The narrative struck a deep chord with the electorate. Corruption within the government ranks was another thorn in their side.

The BJD lost the 2024 assembly election and was forced into the opposition ranks. This brought a sudden end to Naveen’s 24-year uninterrupted rule. This demonstrated that even the most stable regional parties could be systematically defeated by the national campaigns of the BJP.

Politics is a story of allies, enemies, and betrayals. It is neither a cruel game nor a flattering fantasy - it is a realistic, chaotic arena where people fight for their own ends, whether within a municipality, a district, a state, or a nation. Though power struggles may look chaotic, and parties may come and go, there are certain patterns by which power moves - certain patterns in human behavior that make power behave the way it does, shifting from one person or party to another.

The state of the regions

Today, it’s not just these specific parties - the BJD, JD(U), and JD(S) - that are suffering from a lack of support. The national narrative is becoming increasingly dominant, with Hindu-Muslim dynamics often overshadowing regional issues. Look at other examples. Today, the BSP is a party whose time seems to have passed. Once dominant in Uttar Pradesh, it is now overwhelmed by the saffron wave. The SP is stronger, but Akhilesh Yadav has been out of power for nearly a decade now. Indeed, they are part of a national coalition, but looking at the coalition itself, it seems clear that there are numerous cracks between its constituents. Look at Shiv Sena (UBT), which has been split once again. Look at the AAP, whose Punjab CM’s video clip row is projected to eat further into its vote share. Look at Maharashtra itself - the BJP is now the dominant player there, even within a coalition, and both the Mahayuti and the MVA react to it rather than setting the rules of the game. In Assam, regional parties often align with the ruling party at the Centre. Ram Madhav, a prominent BJP leader, is credited with organizing and expanding NDA influence in the Northeast. Today, the BJP remains the dominant player in the region, and others merely react to it. It seems that the smaller allies of the NDA are little more than cogs in the larger machine of BJP rule.

Looking at the INDIA bloc is like looking at the recent history of regional parties, and that history has been nothing short of dreadful for its members. The TMC has faced internal fractures, with dissenting members shifting stances to opportunistically support the NDA. All this happened after the April Bengal elections, whose results were declared on 4 May 2026. Along with West Bengal, another major Indian state also held elections in which tectonic shifts occurred. For years, the two major Dravidian parties, the DMK and the AIADMK, alternated in power to rule Tamil Nadu. A two-year-old party broke the pattern and won the election. Ironically, the Congress immediately dumped the DMK to join Vijay’s TVK in forming the ruling coalition, sparking immense anger within the DMK. Thus, matters are even worse for regional parties in the opposition ranks. They cannot trust the national party they’re associated with, for, in the example of Tamil Nadu as well as Kerala (where the Left Front lost power to the Congress), the Indian National Congress has supposedly betrayed its own allies. I believe that Rahul Gandhi has become increasingly arrogant after his coalition forced a setback on Narendra Modi in the 2024 General elections, following which he strained relations first with the AAP, then the TMC, and finally the DMK.

Broadly speaking, it is a bad time for regional parties. They are either being investigated by the ED and CBI, forced to defect, or dumped by their own allies. Even if they are in a national coalition and supposedly 'safe,' they remain weak and diminished. The era of regionalism that so chaotically shaped India in the 1990s and 2000s is, I believe, coming to an end. Regional parties will still exist and gather immense support within their respective regions, but that no longer ensures a say in the decision-making process in New Delhi. Soon, they may be deprived of that say entirely. Today, almost all major and minor regional parties are associated with either the BJP-aligned NDA coalition or the Congress-aligned INDIA coalition; either way, tension awaits them. One will not let them share any real power, while the other is arrogant enough to ignore them. Even when not ignored, the Congress itself is so weak and divided into regional satraps that regional parties are unsure whether staying with it remains beneficial.

This brings us to the core question: why are regional parties collapsing? In all the cases listed - from the JD(U) and BSP to the BJD, Shiv Sena (UBT), AAP, and DMK - several major characteristics are shared. In fact, some of these characteristics explain their decline. Politics often creates the illusion that elites maneuver while ordinary people get trapped; in the long term, however, political trajectories are guided by the electorate. It is the public that guides the hawa (current) of democratic politics, and when parties or groups fail to capture or respond to it, they eventually decline. The reasons include the following (though not all apply to every case):

• The existence of dynasties in politics
• Succession problems
• Lack of clear ideology or vision
• Corruption and breakdown of institutions (certain regional parties like the TMC are responsible for this as well.)
• Personalized leadership, leading to organizational structures that depend entirely on one person
• Lack of competent electoral machinery
• Structural limitations that confine regional parties to their own states
• Lack of connection with younger, more nationalist generations
• Inability to counter broad, emotional nationalist narratives
• Lack of support from and betrayal by allies
• Lack of unity among regional parties

Whether these problems are many or few, they undeniably exist within regional parties, which often fail to recognize or simply choose to ignore them. In my opinion, the primary reason most regional parties are being marginalized or pressured today is that they are losing touch with the younger demographics of their states. This generation has grown up over the past decade under a nationalist, centralized government and has increasingly come to support it, driven in part by the prevalence of Hindu-Muslim political dynamics.

However, these problems are not isolated; they are part of a larger historical cycle. As mentioned earlier, power moves in patterns, centralizing and decentralising over time. Thus, another factor in the decline of regional parties today is a macro-political one. India operates on a distinct power cycle that connects unity with diversity, centralization with decentralization, and new beginnings with political decay and entropy. Let us move on to the final part of this piece.

The Power Cycles

India - and governments in general - move in massive cycles of power. While immediate political realities contain chaotic and random elements, these empirical, historical patterns repeat systematically over time. In India, the phenomenon of centralization and decentralization is especially frequent. For reference, we can colloquially call these 'Sun Cycles' and 'Constellation Cycles.' In a subcontinent with India’s diversity, there will always be multiple parties, interests, and groups. Therefore, India remains inherently multipolar. However, there are times when national narratives overshadow regional ones, and others when regional narratives dominate their respective spheres, particularly in the absence of an organized national narrative.

• Sun Cycles: Simply explained, these are periods in Indian politics characterized by a highly centralized system where a single dominant party controls most of the nation, forcing other parties to merely react and align themselves in response. This is similar to planets revolving around the Sun, hence the name. This includes the eras when Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi ruled. This also includes the current period (2014–present), where Narendra Modi acts as the Sun and the remaining political entities revolve around him.
• Constellation Cycles: These are periods where no single party dominates and politics is multipolar, or where even if a single party holds a plurality, no individual absolute leader controls it. Instead, multiple regional, local, or independent factions negotiate and maneuver for control over the Union, forming a 'constellation' of many stars. The Janata Party era (1977–80) and India's subsequent coalition eras are prime examples.

Right now, India is firmly within a major Sun Cycle, with Modi at the center around whom other political planets revolve. The decade leading up to it served as a consolidation phase where centralization was executed. By the early 2020s, this process of centralization was effectively complete. We are living under a highly centralized NDA; even with a coalition government at the Centre, it does not function like a traditional coalition. In fact, the BJP is actively seeking a two-thirds majority in Parliament to pass its legislative bills, which explains the recent splits within the TMC and the Shiv Sena (UBT). As Neerja Chowdhury noted, citing her publication in the Indian Express, “the BJP will have lined up an additional 48 Lok Sabha MPs – 20 TMC rebels, 22 from the DMK, six from the Shiv Sena UBT…the NDA tally of 293…will be just 19 short of the two thirds majority mark of 360 (The current strength of the Lok Sabha is 540).”

Because India is in a Sun Cycle and the BJP is in power, the party is leveraging its authority to its maximum advantage. The BJP now boasts the largest and most powerful electoral machinery in the world. Following its recent electoral victories, it appears more invincible than ever. Regional parties share this assessment. Furthermore, in West Bengal and Maharashtra, where these tectonic shifts have occurred, the looming threat of central investigative agencies like the CBI and ED acting against the opposition has triggered widespread switching of ranks.

Consequently, regional parties are imploding, leaving a highly potent government at the Centre - one that wields more consolidated power than during the decade preceding it.

So…why does it all matter?

Thoughts and Conclusions

Ultimately, India is a federation of diverse voices - a nation of immense variety yet deep unity and stability. Even during its most challenging periods, the country has remained resilient. In fact, some of the most critical economic decisions were made when the central government was in a minority; the landmark 1991 liberalization reforms occurred just as the era of coalition politics began.

The decline of regional parties (not their death, but their decline) comes as no surprise. Ultimately, when a dominant national party expands, regional entities inevitably contract, alongside other contributing factors. The broader conclusion is that between the top two national parties, one occupies the treasury benches while the other leads the opposition, leaving little room for any other national-level alternative. On the regional level, however, there was room for resistance - at least until 2026. Now, central power is extending its reach across the entire country. In my opinion, this trajectory risks recreating the highly centralized conditions that Indira Gandhi established for her party in the 1970s and 1980s. Judging by the character of the ruling party, the closing of space for dissent on all sides poses a significant challenge to the health of Indian democracy. Any centralized attempt to consolidate power requires a counterweight - a system of checks and balances - and that crucial balance is now in jeopardy.

Looking ahead, the BJP will face the 2029 general elections. They may win a resounding victory, or perhaps even cross the two-thirds majority mark. Perhaps the long-term implications for democracy will be fully realized at that juncture, a process that appears to have commenced right now in 2026. While the CJP movement is attempting to channel public dissent, it does not currently function as an organized political party; it remains primarily a protest movement. The public may realize that something is amiss within the system, but their collective anger has not reached a critical threshold.

Consequently, it is increasingly likely that the BJP's prospects for 2029 will remain largely unaffected. While sections of the youth have pushed back against the BJP, the broader electorate has not. Instead, the nation appears to be leaning the other way, effectively permitting the BJP to consolidate its 'Sun' era during Prime Minister Modi's current tenure.

This explains why regional bastions are collapsing. Moving forward, it is essential to remain cognizant of the structural shifts within an extremely polarized political landscape and prepare for the future. That, in my view, is the most pragmatic approach.