Two brilliant posts by Pranay Kotasthane and Amey Tirodkar capture something deeply worrying about Indian politics: the rising dominance of the BJP, and the slow drift towards what feels like creeping one-partyism.

I’m not using words like authoritarianism because they often flatten the nuance of what is happening. They’re also thrown around far too casually, with little appreciation for the historical weight those words carry. But both pieces give you a sense of how the BJP has become the 80,000-pound gorilla in the room, with no real competition that can match its political, organisational, financial, and narrative power.

Over the last few months, we’ve seen leaders from the TMC, Aam Aadmi Party, BJD, and Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena switch sides in one form or another. This is not just ordinary political churn. It says something about the scale of the BJP’s dominance since 2014.

Pranay’s post, in particular, traces this dominance through the lens of incentives. The point that stood out to me was simple but profound: politicians stick with their parties after losing because they believe they might return to power someday. That hope is what keeps parties alive after defeat.

But the BJP seems to have eroded that assumption. Because of its dominance across almost every political layer—from Parliament to states to local bodies—many opposition politicians no longer seem to believe that being out of power is temporary.

What has changed is not merely the balance of power overwhelmingly in favour of the BJP. It is the perception of permanence. A large number of opposition politicians now appear to believe that once their party loses power, especially against the BJP, the path back has become extraordinarily difficult. The BJP enters every election with advantages that no rival currently possesses. Its financial resources dwarf those of competitors. Its organisational machinery reaches deeper into society than any other national party. It benefits from a communications ecosystem that works throughout the year rather than only during election campaigns. It has become exceptionally skilled at converting elections into presidential-style contests centred on Narendra Modi. Even where state leaders matter, the campaign eventually gravitates towards the prime minister.

Alongside these advantages sits a second set of perceptions that are harder to quantify but impossible to ignore. Opposition parties can see that institutions expected to function as neutral referees no longer inspire confidence. The Election Commission has eroded its credibility over the last few years. Investigative agencies led by the ED and CBI are seen as extensions of political strategy. The judiciary has a record of going along with the arguments of the party in power more often than not. State machinery is more responsive to the needs of incumbency than a democracy should permit.

The BJP has also broken an older, informal bargain in Indian politics: that politicians would not go after each other too aggressively because power eventually changes hands. You didn’t want to set a precedent that would come back and bite you later.

That restraint seems to have disappeared.

The BJP has been remarkably successful at using every resource at its disposal: its organisation, its election machinery, its ability to shape dominant narratives, its financial muscle, and what critics see as the politicisation of institutions and investigative agencies. Whether one agrees with every accusation or not, the perception is now widespread: if you are out of power, you are vulnerable.

And in Indian politics, vulnerability is easy to manufacture. All it takes is one old file, one signature, one decision taken years ago, and suddenly the machinery can start moving.

That changes incentives completely.

If you are an opposition politician, switching sides is no longer just about ambition. It is also about fear. Fear of investigations. Fear of political irrelevance. Fear that there may be no path back to power.

Ameet’s Frontline piece on the Shiv Sena captures one live example of this. Six MPs from Uddhav Thackeray’s faction crossing over to Eknath Shinde’s faction is not just a Maharashtra story. It is part of a much larger story about the collapse of opposition confidence.

As an Indian, I find this worrying. And this has nothing to do with one’s political leaning. Nothing good usually comes out of one party becoming too dominant and too entrenched in power.

Democracy works because power is contested. There are checks, balances, reversals, and the constant possibility of losing office. Given enough time, even saints become sinners when power becomes too easy to wield and too difficult to lose.

I don’t know where this country goes from here. It is very easy to lazily call this creeping authoritarianism and stop thinking. But the more important point is this: one party has become overwhelmingly dominant, and history rarely gives us happy endings when power becomes this concentrated.

At the same time, it is hard to see a credible opposition taking shape. At both the national and state levels, the opposition is in shambles.

That’s what worries me the most.