Mandir vs Mandal in 2024: are there limits to the BJP’s social engineering?

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has achieved unprecedented success in three successive Indian general elections. However, in 2024, despite winning, in conjunction with its allies, the highest number of seats and staying in power at the center, the party experienced a considerable setback, which was a surprise to almost everyone. This paper explores the difficulties that the BJP experienced in Uttar Pradesh (UP) and contrasts UP with Gujarat, where BJP dominance remains unchallenged. The BJP’s strategy for winning in UP depends on a combination of its core Hindu nationalist (Hindutva) message with ‘social engineering’, i.e., seeking to include formerly subordinate social groups, politically, socially, and economically, within the larger Hindu tent. There are historic tensions in this attempt to combine social justice messages (‘Mandal’) with Hindu nationalist positions (‘Mandir’). We argue that the Samajwadi Party (SP) learned how to counter the BJP’s social engineering strategy. Thanks also to BJP mis-steps, the SP and its allies managed to win more seats in UP than the NDA (the BJP plus small allied parties), even though they received fewer votes.