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00:00More than two months since the general election result in India, which saw the Modi government
00:08reduced to a minority, which means that they require the help of allies to stay afloat.
00:13It's very clear that the Modi government's key allies like the JDU of Nitish Kumar or
00:18Chandrababu Naidu's TDP have basically surrendered to whatever the BJP wants them to do at the
00:24moment and don't really seem to be putting any kind of pressure on the BJP in any way.
00:30Now, that's evident from a string of things that have happened since the results.
00:34Now, please remember, firstly, that the Modi government is more than 30 MP short of the
00:39majority, which is why the 28 MPs of the JDU and the TDP become so important.
00:44First, it was expected that they would lay pressure to have the Lok Sabha speakers post.
00:48That didn't happen.
00:50They also didn't really press for any major cabinet berths for their MPs.
00:54They were pushing for special status for their respective states,
00:57but that was rejected by the government.
00:59And instead, they had to settle for some pretty generous offerings in the general budget by
01:05Nirmala Sitharaman only days earlier.
01:08So they've welcomed that instead of the special status, which has been a big political issue
01:12in their respective states and don't really, again, seem to be pushing back on any big issues
01:19such as exam paper leaks, which has been a big headline in India and something that's
01:23really had the BJP on the back foot.
01:25Now, there could be political reasons for this, local political reasons for this,
01:30because both Chandrababu Naidu and Nitish Kumar are not as politically strong as they once used
01:35to be in their states.
01:37Nitish Kumar hasn't been well for a while.
01:39He's lost his school publicly more than once in the last few weeks.
01:43Chandrababu Naidu too is not as strong as he used to be in Andhra Pradesh,
01:47with other players also coming up in the state in recent times.
01:51And the crucial test could actually be the upcoming state elections,
01:54because if the BJP doesn't do well in these state polls,
01:58then maybe the allies will start to exert pressure on issues that matter to them.
02:03Let's see how it plays out.