Did a section of the voters in Maharashtra and Haryana favour the opposition due to the ruling government’s performance on the economic front? The hyper-nationalist campaigns that the Bharatiya Janata Party raised on cultural and national security issues failed to yield it the same dividends they did in the Lok Sabha elections. Discussing the recent polls are two eminent political scientists, Professor Suhas Palshikar, editor of journal Studies in Indian Politics , and Irfan Nooruddin, professor of Indian politics at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, Washington D.C.