India, Nov. 23 -- After the National Democratic Alliance's unbelievable victory in Bihar and the Mahagathbandhan's shattering defeat, there are two questions that stare us in the face - why do the BJP and Narendra Modi keep winning? Why do the Congress and Rahul Gandhi keep losing? These are not easy questions to answer, but, equally, they are important questions to ask. So, let me offer a series of issues that seek to explore these questions. Let me start with the question many people have been asking - why do the BJP and Modi keep winning? After eleven-and-a-half years in power, one would expect the country would want a change. That anit-incumbency and tiredness with the same party would set in. But, instead, the BJP and its allies swept to a phenomenal victory. Hence, my question: Why do the BJP and Modi keep winning? In June 2024, when he returned for a third term as Prime Minister (PM), Modi was perceived to be diminished. He was dependent on allies. The BJP, it was thought, was running out of steam. But after the party's sweeping victories in Haryana, Maharashtra, Delhi and, now, Bihar, does that impression still hold? Modi seems as strong as he's ever been. So, is there something about PM Modi that has caught the imagination of the country, which political analysts and the Opposition don't understand, and don't know how to counter? Does he, in other words, represent the zeitgeist of our time? Has he altered the grammar of politics? In contrast, why does Congress keep losing? It believed it had a winning hand in Haryana, Maharashtra, and Bihar, but lost on all three occasions. What keeps going wrong for Congress? There's also a need to raise the opposite question to the one we posed about Narendra Modi. Is there something about Rahul Gandhi that puts the nation off, that makes it difficult for him to be accepted as a leader people want to vote to power? Is he admired and respected? Is he viewed as a potential future PM, or is that where he falls short? There's another way of phrasing this issue; 65% of India is under the age of 35. Yet they seem to prefer a 75-year-old Narendra Modi over a 55-year-old Rahul Gandhi. Ordinarily, shouldn't it be the other way round? There are also issues about the future. Does the shattering defeat in Bihar raise disturbing questions about the Congress? For instance, will potential allies now see the party as a liability? Will they question its ability to lead the INDIA alliance? In the first half of next year, elections will be held in Kerala, Assam, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. Will the demoralisation that will inevitably have set in put the Congress on the back foot, whilst, in contrast, could confidence encourage and boost the BJP's prospects? Assam and Kerala are two states where the Congress is the main Opposition party, and one would assume, it should be poised to win them because the incumbent governments have been in office for 10 years. But if it fails to do so, what sort of future will the Congress face? Congress governments ruled India from 1947 till 1977 without a break. That was 30 years of uninterrupted Congress rule. Are we now witnessing something similar, except with the BJP in the saddle? Here is a comparison that may not be inapt. In Britain, the Liberal Party was one of two ruling parties in the 19th and early 20th centuries. But after the collapse of the Lloyd George government in 1922, the Liberals were reduced to a rump and never recovered. Is that the fate that awaits the Congress? As I said, these are not easy questions to answer and, equally significantly, the answers will differ. Each of you is likely to have your own. But they are, nonetheless, questions that need to be asked because they frame the present political situation. Why not spend a little time answering them?...