India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi [Photo/Agencies] Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling party were so keen to win elections in a handful of states going to the polls last month that concerns over the coronavirus pandemic were largely swept aside in raucous campaigning. As India's second wave of infections raced away, Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, this week learned it had failed to take the prized state of West Bengal, and also came up short in the two southern states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. But the party secured a second term in the northeastern state of Assam, and an alliance with regional parties led it to victory in the union territory of Puducherry.