By Arun Srivastava
The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) strategy of fracturing regional parties serves as a quaternary-track political manoeuvre designed to secure long-term constitutional dominance, dismantle the opposition architecture INDIA bloc, give a shape to its long cherished desire to create Bharat free of active opposition and finally, consolidating its position in 2029 and sweeping the Lok Sabha election. It is a three year programme piloted by Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duo to facilitate the process of One National One Party goal and the establishment of Hindu Rashtra.
Splitting regional parties is a highly calculated, multi-layered political strategy rather than a simplistic action. The immediate goal is often to secure a two-thirds legislative majority for constitutional amendments for enabling passage of the delimitation bill during the next parliamentary session. For ensuring the constitutional amendment, the ruling NDA requires a two-thirds majority (360 seats out of 540) in the Lok Sabha. Modi government had tried to have the bill through in the last session, but it fell of majority support.
The push to split parties and consolidate power is also inextricably linked to Narendra Modi’s attempts to pass a Delimitation Bill ahead of 2029LokSabha polls.. Consolidating numbers would help Modi to give a shape to his plan to easily push through redrawn electoral maps that fundamentally alter India’s parliamentary math.
Poaching regional leaders would provide instant grassroots organizational machinery to BJP, but the possibility could not be ruled out that Shah’s action may prove to be counter-productive and harm the BJP and Modi’s design. Delimitation will increase seats in northern states where the BJP possesses a strong footprint, while reduce the relative electoral weight of southern and regional strongholds.
Controlling the legislative process ensures the boundary redrawing aligns with the party’s long-term national electoral map optimization. The INDIA bloc relies heavily on strong regional parties to anchor specific states and defeat the BJP locally. By fracturing these regional entities, the BJP isolates the Congress party, depriving it of crucial coalition partners, shared vote banks, and localized organizational machinery. Splits trigger intense internal infighting over party names and election symbols, forcing opposition leaders to focus on survival rather than mounting a unified national campaign.
The Delimitation Bill, 2026 is highly controversial because it proposes a massive overhaul of India’s electoral map by expanding the Lok Sabha from 543 to 850 seats and changing how parliamentary constituencies are calculated. Modi government had introduced a three-bill package in a special parliamentary session to operationalize the 33% women’s quota, which was legally tied to a new delimitation exercise. The opposition, along with several region
The parties, opposed the move, leading to the bill falling 54 votes short of the required majority. The delimitation bill would widen the “North-South” Divide. Southern states, which have successfully curbed population growth, feared that a population-based redistribution of seats would drastically diminish their political representation in favour of more populous northern states. Their apprehension was genuine and rationale. By inflating the Lok Sabha to roughly 850 seats, the government aimed to ensure no state lost its absolute number of seats, but at the same time it would create an unwieldy legislative chamber without addressing the underlying federal concerns.
It was purely a political move of BJP. It is a major power in northern India, by virtually by crippling the Congress in the states. With increased number of seats, BJP would emerge as the ruling party. It would not have to bother for support from the southern states. Despite its defeat, the bill remains the epicentre of a fierce debate on Indian federalism. The fear that seat reallocation will permanently shift political power from South India to North India will come true. Because the North’s population grew exponentially faster over the last 50 years, a purely population-based seat allocation would drastically increase the number of MPs from northern states (like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar).
Though BJP and RSS talk of one country, this move of the saffron ecosystem will split India between North and South. The INDIA bloc had accused BJP of forcing through a radical, potentially unfair restructuring of constituencies. The bill sought to grant Parliament the direct authority to decide which census to use for redrawing boundaries, stripping away the fixed constitutional timelines that ensured institutional neutrality. Splitting the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Shiv Sena (SS) would yield immaterial gains for the BJP as it is already in power in Maharashtra. A dozen Lok Sabha members of these parties, deserting their parent parties, would not have much significance in the state. But their support is essential at national level. They will help BJP-RSS accomplish their long-drawn mission. The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) is yet to come out of the psychological shock it suffered in June 2022 when Eknath Shinde led a major rebellion within the Shiv Sena.
In Bengal too, the rebellion by the TMC parliamentarians does not have so much of relevance. BJP is already in power and it will continue to rule for next five years. While the rebels are using the BJP for getting state protection and enjoying power, the BJP is encouraging them to desert TMC with an eye on smooth passage of the Delimitation bill. The number of the deserters is not small; around 20 MPs are in line. Nonetheless the national BJP gains from the Trinamool Congress MPs desertions by breaking Mamata Banerjee’s regional dominance in West Bengal, weakening anti-BJP opposition coalitions at the national level, and boosting its own parliamentary strength and organizational footprint in eastern India. Bolstering its parliamentary numbers makes it easier for the national BJP to get pass crucial bills and legislative reforms where it previously required broader opposition consensus.
By engineering splits or exploiting existing fractures (such as the DMK distancing itself from Congress), the BJP creates mutual distrust among opposition parties, effectively destroying the united front they presented in earlier parliamentary sessions. There is no doubt that a successful delimitation exercise could structurally redesign the composition of the Lok Sabha—potentially benefiting saffron ecosystem. Weakening regional players would prove to be boon for the BJP as it would either co-opt the regional leaders or consolidate its own grassroots presence in states where regional parties once held monopolies.
These desertions will help the BJP in not only having its contentious Delimitation Bill passed in the next session of parliament, but also smooth passage of highly contentious, stalled legislation, like One Nation, One Election (simultaneous national and state polls), and the Uniform Civil Code (UCC). By splintering the key regional pillars of the opposition, the BJP effectively dilutes the collective bargaining and voting power of the INDIA alliance inside Parliament.
Rather than confronting entire regional blocks, this strategy involves “salami slicing” the opposition.“Salami slicing” of the opposition is a political strategy where a dominant or ruling party gradually weakens, divides, and eliminates opposition forces piece by piece—one thin “slice” at a time—rather than launching a single, massive crackdown. By taking small, incremental steps, the ruling power avoids triggering a massive public backlash, a unified resistance, or international condemnation. By the time the opposition realizes what is happening, they are already completely neutralized. Saffron ecosystem has already been resorting to Salami Slicing, in future it would further intensify it for having an effectively complete control.
Political analysts and commentators view this BJP’s strategy of engineering splits and absorbing leaders from regional parties as a definitive push toward an “Virodh-mukt Bharat” (opposition-free) political order. This will also lead to erosion of federal power. Yet another aspect of this move is; by systematically weakening regional satraps, the BJP seeks to replace India’s highly fragmented, multi-party coalition system with a centralized, dominant-party system. When Modi introduced the phrase “Congress-mukt Bharat” in 2014, it was framed as ridding India of dynastic politics, but his latest move aims at finishing the regional political power centres. BJP’s top leadership has frequently critiqued regionalism, arguing that regional parties prioritize caste-based, and dynastic interests over national development.
Modi’s delimitation and seat-expansion proposals are rooted in the RSS’s longstanding ideological goals. The RSS has historically advocated for population-based representation and restructuring India’s political geography. The push to link delimitation with the 2011 Census and a massive expansion of the Lok Sabha (up to 850 seats) is strongly supported by the RSS. It has also echoed the Modi administration’s legislative “guarantees” regarding the redrawing of constituencies. The Modi government argued that population-based delimitation restores “one person, one vote, one value” after 50 years of freeze. However, the opposition sees it as unfair to the southern and eastern states that fared better in implementing the government’s population control policies. (IPA Service)
