With the toppling of the Grand Alliance in Bihar, the BJP is now in power in 17 out of 31 states in the country--the widest spread it has ever had, with the most MLAs nationwide that any party has had in 25 years. While the Congress is in power in six states, non-BJP, non-Congress governments rule eight states.
Moreover, the BJP is not expected to lose power in any of the states it currently controls, but is expected to flip a few more states in upcoming elections; Congress-held Himachal Pradesh which goes to the polls in late 2017 and Karnataka, which votes in 2018, are widely expected to go to the BJP.
Just five years ago, the BJP was in power in just nine states, the Congress in 15. Since then, the party has won state after state with a combination of outright electoral victories, strategic alliances and coups. The party's indefatigable campaigning saw it win historic outright victories in Jharkhand in 2014, Assam in 2016, Manipur in 2017 and Uttar Pradesh in 2017. Alliances with the People's Democratic Party in Jammu & Kashmir and the Telugu Desam Party in Andhra Pradesh in 2014 brought it to power in two states that it had never ruled. Systematic courting of opposition MLAs and leaders helped the party bring down Congress-held governments in Arunachal Pradesh and now Bihar.
Moreover, apart from Congress and Left-held states, the Trinamool Congress-held West Bengal and the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi, the remaining states show varying degrees of proximity to the BJP. The Sikkim Democratic Front which rules Sikkim is part of the National Democratic Alliance at the Centre. The Telangana Rashtra Samiti, which governs Telangana, Tamil Nadu's All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam more recently and the Biju Janata Dal in Odisha have all on occasion voted with the BJP in Parliament.
Since its decimation in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress has wrested just one state away from the BJP (Punjab in 2017) while it has lost 10 to the BJP--Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Haryana, Jharkhand to a smaller extent, J&K, Maharashtra, Manipur, Uttarakhand and now Bihar.