4 min readNew DelhiMay 1, 2026 07:20 AM ISTRuchir Sharma is Chairman of Rockefeller International and founder of Breakout CapitalA feature of Indian politics that allows the BJP to remain a dominant force is that the party faces no competition on the Right, author and fund manager Ruchir Sharma has said.“Anybody who has a right-wing ideology has one party. On the other side, there is so much competition and that vote gets split,” Sharma said at the Express Adda in Mumbai on April 28. Sharma, who is the chairman of Rockefeller International and founder and chief investment officer of Breakout Capital, an investment firm focused on emerging markets, was in conversation with Anant Goenka, Executive Director, The Indian Express.Sharma pointed out how in West Bengal, where he recently travelled for about a week during the Assembly poll campaign, Trinamool Congress (TMC) chairperson and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee enjoys widespread support of Muslims, but faces competition from smaller parties such as the AIMIM and the All India Secular Front, or AISF, that are “nibbling away (at the TMC’s minority votes)”.In contrast, “the BJP has no competition; so, that’s what I think really makes the politics of this country what it is and what it makes the BJP so dominant — they have no competition on the Right … the BJP doesn’t even have a small rightwing party”, he said. While the BJP or its alliance’s vote share is never more than 50%, Sharma said that the rest of the votes get “split all over the place”.How important is development?Sharma said development was “one of the six or seven factors” that help a party win elections. He said that in his book, Democracy on the Road (2019), he looked at the average growth rates of states in the preceding three to four decades. “We typically found that for states which recorded an average growth rate of more than 8% a year over a five-year term, the chances that the incumbent would get re-elected in that state were 50%. Which is a shocking number, right? That you delivered 8% economic growth over five years and still the chances of you getting re-elected are no different than what they generally are, which is 50-50,” he said, adding that the theory that one could win an election on just a development plank got disproved when Chandrababu Naidu got voted out as Andhra Pradesh CM in 2004.Providing the example of what he saw in his recent West Bengal trip, Sharma said in this election, “development was not on the table by either side”. “When we asked the BJP people, ‘Why aren’t you talking more about development?’, their answer was, ‘We want to first make sure people’s basic concerns about security are taken care of before we talk about development’. So we can criticise Mamata on development, but the fact of the matter is that it just wasn’t an issue we encountered in all our travels.”Sharma said the biggest threat to the Mamata Banerjee government was anti-incumbency and that the election in West Bengal was closer than expected. “There is a 10 percentage point gap (between the two parties) … the gap is going to close … whether that gap can close enough to flip the government is very difficult for us to say. To close a 10 percentage point gap is a very big deal. It’s almost like you need a wave to do that. So there’s anti-incumbency, but whether that can close a 10 percentage point gap is something we totally struggle with.” © The Indian Express Pvt LtdTags:Bharatiya Janata PartyRuchir SharmaAdvertisementLoading Recommendations...