Just one name matters today in India, the day after results of four state elections in the heart of the country revealed the vice-like grip of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over its voters – Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The BJP seems to have destroyed its main opposition, the once-grand Congress party, in these elections. Or, perhaps, the Congress destroyed itself, as voters traded historical memory, dynastic loyalty, and a lack of imagination in the current leadership for the ambitious and aspirational politics espoused by Modi.

If you were living in a Himalayan cave in India these past 10 years and had somehow missed the steep decline of the Congress – save for an occasional victory burst, like the one in Telangana state this time or in Karnataka less than six months ago – you might have been startled by the absence of a plan, leave alone strategy, that the Congress should have plotted on a war-like footing to take on the BJP election juggernaut.

Instead, there was hubris, as if voters should have no alternative but to vote for the ideologically pure and secular Congress party. We are the upholders of the idea of the republic, the Congress proclaimed, sneering at the street-side aggression demonstrated by BJP workers, activists, and leaders.

Except, as most politicians know, the one thing voters detest is to be taken for granted. And so they punished the Congress, instead of punishing the ideologically right-wing BJP. It was a pushover, anyway. The citadel crumbled so quickly. In the end, the main Congress gods, Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi, not just had feet of clay, they were putty in the hands of Narendra Modi.

And so Modi’s party decimated the Congress party in Sunday’s elections, turning the country saffron again. In Rajasthan and Chhatisgarh, which the Congress had ruled for the last 5 years, the BJP won convincingly – in Rajasthan it defeated the Congress, 115-70, and in Chhatisgarh, it won 56-34. In Madhya Pradesh the BJP underlined its determination to stay on for another five years, winning 165-64 seats. Results of the poll in Mizoram will come in on Monday, in deference to the Sabbath sensitivities of the predominantly Christian state in the North-East

It was Telangana, which clearly votes differently than the Hindi-speaking North, that saved the day for the Congress. The party defeated the outgoing Bharath Rashtriya Samiti (BRS), 64-40. No doubt the Congress will hang on to this last straw, even though the camel’s back has been long broken.

There’s a third lesson from this provincial election – which is, that India’s female voter has a mind of her own and will not be dictated to by the family patriarch, whether husband or brother or father or father-in-law. Election trackers demonstrated that women had voted for the BJP in large numbers.

The BJP has long known and understood the importance of the silent female vote. Over the past few elections across the country, Prime Minister Modi has made it a point to focus on the poor woman who bears the brunt of looking after the family – for example, promoting the usage of gas cylinders over firewood, aimed at making cooking far simpler. Modi also understood that when you aim to change the mind of the woman in the house, she influences political and economic change from within.

Special schemes to promote women’s education and employment have been an important focus of the welfarism that lies at the heart of the BJP’s political cut and thrust. This time was no different. Beyond continued subsidies for rice and wheat for those beneath the poverty line which demonstrates the existence of both hunger and malnutrition beyond the headlights of the big cities, in this election welfare schemes were tailored for women.

In Madhya Pradesh, where the BJP has been in power since 2005 (save for a year-long interregnum in 2018-19 when it lost power to the Congress, but won it back when Congress rebels turned coat and moved en masse to the BJP), a scheme for young women called “Mukhyamantri Ladli Behna Yojana” or “Chief Minister’s Favorite Sister Scheme” involved the transfer of Rs1250 ($15.50) per month to women between 21-60, subject to conditions like total family income being less $300 per year.

 The scheme was a huge hit. As many as 13 million women were enrolled within a few months of it being launched in June this year. Pollsters data showed that 50 percent of women voters had cast their vote in favor of the BJP in Madhya Pradesh this time around – in comparison, the Congress got 10 percent fewer women voters. Significantly, women voters outnumbered male voters by as much as 6 percent.

But the question why the BJP wins again and again and again — and is likely to win again when general elections are held in the middle of 2024 – was answered decisively this election. Simply put, the BJP is far hungrier for power than the well-mannered Congress. It wants to rule India. If it wins again in 2024, as it is likely to do if Sunday’s results are anything to go by, and Modi becomes prime minister again, then he will match the unprecedented consecutive third-time victory record created by India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.

Nehru, his daughter Indira Gandhi, and now Narendra Modi – three prime ministers who will be remembered because they shaped India in their image. The big difference between Modi and his predecessors is, of course, that he comes from humble origins, while both Nehru and Indira once stood at the forefront of India’s social, cultural, and political elite groups.

For the time being, at least, it seems Modi and the BJP are here to stay. The rest of the world may sneer at his party’s right-wing politics which invisibilizes the Muslim community, but India clearly admires the ambition and determination that is part of his political instinct.

"Modi hai to mumkin hai," goes a favorite BJP slogan, meaning, "Things are possible when Modi is around." Or simply, things go better with Modi. Certainly, India would largely agree with that sentiment today.

Jyoti Malhotra is Founder-Editor of #AwaazSouthAsia and a regular correspondent for Asia Sentinel. Follow her on Twitter @jomalhotra

(This article was first published in Asia Sentinel, India, Hong Kong)