The saffron spread: For now, the BJP remains the side to beat in 2019

Bypoll losses of BJP, such as the recent ones in MP mean little when the larger picture is one of rising influence

With the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) handsomely registering its presence in the Northeast in the recently concluded Assembly elections, the party’s onward march continues unabated. Every time the party finds itself in the dock — most recently, for example, with the outsize PNB scam — it receives good news electorally. Its setbacks at the hustings since 2014 have been either minor or reversed with new partnerships, like in Bihar.

This was also the week when the scale of the scam involving Karti Chidambaram, the son of former finance minister P Chidambaram, began to be realised, with the Central Bureau of