In India's current political scenario, all's well that ends well seems to be the case for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which retained power in Madhya Pradesh and wrested Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh from the main opposition Congress party in the recently concluded elections in five Indian states that were seen as 'semi-finals' for next year's general elections.
Congress won just one state - Telangana.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi travelled extensively across poll-bound states, spending long hours campaigning for BJP candidates.
This was nothing new for Modi, who is often accused of leaving the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) unattended for days at a time while working for his political party during elections.
More than 160 million people, or one-sixth of India's electorate, were eligible to vote in the November election, according to reports. Vote counting for a fifth state, Mizoram, was underway on Monday.
Political trends and experts' views on India's electoral pattern suggest that winning state elections is no guarantee of doing well at the national level.
In 2018, for example, the INC or Congress, as India's oldest political party is popularly known, won three key state elections - Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Three months later, the BJP swept the general elections at the national level and in all three states.
State elections, say political experts, are fought on state or region-specific issues, while general elections are fought on more national issues.
Therefore, the fact that a political party wins certain states does not mean that it will do well at the national level in the next election. It has happened in the past and it could happen again in the future.
Why Did Congress Lose Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh?
The allegations of corruption levelled against the Congress were not answered satisfactorily and the infighting in the Congress led to the loss of the election, Anjani Jha, a senior journalist who also works as a professor of journalism and mass communication in Bihar, told Sputnik India.
"Corruption charges by the rival parties and infighting among the Congress leaders proved dangerous for the grand old party," he said, adding that Congress should have addressed the allegations of corruption effectively.
In Rajasthan, the infighting in the Congress was more than evident, the party leadership must have done something to fix it, Jha believed. He also said that Rajasthan had a trend of not repeating governments, so it was expected that people would want a change and they voted for one.
Interacting with Sputnik India, another senior media professional on condition of anonymity said that Congress losing Rajasthan was understood as the state has a trend of not repeating a government for some time, but that they would lose Chhattisgarh to the BJP was totally unexpected.
"The Congress took Chhattisgarh for granted. They were over-confident that the state would remain with the Congress, but that did not happen as the rival BJP ran a centralised political campaign, keeping Modi as the main face for the polls," he said, adding that the BJP's vote share increased mainly because of the welfare schemes it announced.
Women constitute almost half the population of the states in question and the welfare schemes announced by the Prime Minister in addition to the existing ones played a significant role in increasing the BJP's vote share this time around, the senior scribe felt.
Asked whether the Congress would be able to improve its performance in next year's general elections, he said: "It looks like a done deal (for the BJP) but things can change". He said issues would be handled differently at the national level.
The Indian states of Madhya Pradesh. Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram went to the polls in November. The BJP secured the 'Hindi heartland' of northern and central India, which sends a significant number of MPs to the Indian parliament.