Only three months ago, the ruling BJP at the Centre breached the West Bengal barrier scripting history in the eastern state. The win was accompanied by a hattrick in Assam and another victory in Puducherry, reaffirming saffron dominance of India’s vast electoral landscape.Cut to August, and perceptions around saffron invincibility appear to have altered.First came the BJP’s August 3 losses in national president Nitin Nabin’s Bankipur seat of Bihar and former Madhya Pradesh home minister Narottam Mishra’s Datia segment which the Congress retained.Beyond these reverses too, the BJP found itself firefighting on other fronts this week, mostly around the public display of dissent in poll-bound Punjab where a newly constituted state body left many leaders fuming.At the core of the anxieties in Punjab is what state leaders describe as “arbitrary dismissals and rapid reversals.” Six district presidents were removed within days of being appointed, no show-cause notices issued and no explanations sought.Three of the five newly named general secretaries, disgruntled leaders say, are tied to bases in and around Ludhiana with no representation in the organisation for BJP’s traditional Punjab strongholds in Majha and Doaba regions (Amritsar, Gurdaspur and Hoshiarpur where BJP candidates have historically contested elections).”These key Punjab regions have been disregarded in the BJP state organisation formed after the new president Kewal Dhillon took over,” say BJP sources explaining why party president Nitin Nabin summoned Dhillon and Punjab organisation secretary Manthri Srinivasulu urgently to Delhi on Saturday and asked them to course correct.What prescriptions the BJP deploys in the coming days to heal fresh scars remains to be seen but what’s important is a sense of resignation within sections of the Sangh parivar to the developments unfolding around them.The BJP loss to poll strategist Prashant Kishor in Bankipur, a seat Nitin Nabin vacated when he came to Rajya Sabha recently, is being termed by many in the party as unsurprising.”We saw this coming. This had been in the making since February when the core upper caste support base of the BJP came out openly and strongly against UGC’s equity guidelines that barred discrimination against SCs and STs, but left general categories out of the purview of the order. The protesters demanded Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation as education minister even then but the resignation came only after the Cockroach Janta Party led the Jantar Mantar agitation over NEET UG paper leak. So the core voters have been upset for long,” said a source.Bankipur, considered the real Patna for being home to key urban and political establishments of the state capital, also saw an abysmally low voter turnout at 34.30 % this time – a 7 % dip from 2025.The drop in turnout has worried the party considering it normally manages to ensure high voter mobilisation as it did in Bengal.Bengal saw a record breaking turnout of over 92 % – much higher than the previous high of 84.72 % in 2011.Asked why the electoral turnout in Bankipur slumped, a Sangh parivar insider said, “Core voters either did not come out or voted for Prashant Kishor. This explains his victory margin of 19324 votes over the BJP candidate.”In MP’s Datia too, internal factionalism dented the BJP which had denied the ticket to ex minister Narottam Mishra and fielded a newcomer youngster in his place. The Congress reclaimed Datia with a margin of 6016 votes.The only bypoll BJP won out of the three (Bankipur and Datia being the other two was) recent held was Gujarat’s Manjalpur. A high victory margin of 30630 seats in favour of the BJP once again stamped Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s absolute dominance in his home state.That said, coupled with student-led Jantar Mantar protests culminating in the first cabinet minister rank resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan in PM Modi era (earlier MoS MJ Akbar had resigned after the MeToo movement allegations), the recent election and organisational challenges have prompted the BJP to rework its communication and political strategies.First signs of a reset came visible when Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted Instagram reels to reach out to the youth.More and more ministers and lawmakers are now being asked to raise their social media profiles and mount counter offensives to opposition narratives around student distress.Political heat will only rise in the coming days as all parties gear up for another election season in 2027 when major battleground states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur and Goa go to polls. Barring Punjab where Aam Aadmi Party rules, the other four states are with the BJP. That explains the high saffron stakes going forward.