If 2015 was bad for the Bharatiya Janata Party electorally, 2016 could have been worse. The party failed in its attempt to grab the Uttarakhand assembly and gains in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections seemed to have been frittered away. Exit poll data from assembly elections in four states and one union territory suggest the BJP will win at least one state this year and could even have bright spots in other states.
Major exit polls predicted a victory for the BJP in Assam, which has been in Congress hands for 15 years now. If the prediction turns out to be accurate, it will mean the BJP in power in Assam for the first time ever, giving party president Amit Shah his first major scalp after the Modi wave general election of 2014.
The BJP's massive victory at the Centre that year gave the party hope that it might be able to expand far beyond the Hindi belt into corners of the nation where it didn't have any major presence.
Those expectations were dealt a massive setback when the BJP was routed in Delhi and Bihar last year. If the BJP failed to make any headway in the four states that went to polls this year, the party's morale would have been hit even harder in the run up to the big prize: Uttar Pradesh, next year. Exit poll data, however, suggests the BJP will get a chance to build some momentum going into major contests next year.
Most exit polls are predicting a comfortable win for the BJP and its allies in the 126-strong assembly, with only TimesNow-CVoter suggesting it will not get enough seats to form the government by itself.
If these predictions turn out to be accurate, it would vindicate the BJP's new campaign formula, which was put together in the aftermath of the Delhi and Bihar defeats. Unlike in those states, this time the saffron party named a chief ministerial candidate far in advance of the election, and also managed to stitch alliances with the Asom Gana Parishad and the Bodo People's Front. A victory on these terms might also give the party a template which it might want to replicate next year.
Meanwhile, exit poll data also had more positive news for the BJP. Most polls suggested the party was on track to get its first-ever seats in Kerala, a state which has always seen Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh support that never properly turned into political success before. Monday's numbers give the BJP between one and eight seats. Even one seat, in a state that normally swings back and forth between the Congress and the Communists, would represent a major victory for the saffron party.
The numbers even give the BJP a couple of seats in Tamil Nadu, where it initially hoped for much more by attempting to stitch together a broad coalition, just as it had done in the 2014 Lok Sabha election. It failed to do that, but can still hope that a few seats will give it a platform on which to build for the next election.
The Congress has been predicted to lose Assam to the BJP, Kerala to the Left and fail to capture West Bengal from the Trinamool Congress despite its alliance with the Communists. But Monday also brought a bit of good news. Unexpected exit polls suggest the party, in alliance with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, might end up forming the government in Tamil Nadu, giving it a rare victory and it might also be in place to grab the little prize that is the Union territory of Puducherry.