India, Oct. 30 -- center;">In 2009, almost 79 million Indians voted for the candidates of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to represent them in the Lok Sabha. In 2014, over 171 million Indians backed the party's candidates, giving the BJP an outright majority in the lower house of the Indian Parliament. And in 2019, over 220 million Indians decided to repose faith in BJP candidates, giving the party a majority for the second consecutive time.

This staggering rise in the BJP's vote share in the span of a decade, from 18.80% to 31% to 37.36%, corresponded with the voices on the ground.

If, in 2014, voters from Muzaffarnagar in western Uttar Pradesh to Purnea in Bihar's Seemanchal to the east, told this writer that their vote was for Naren...