Welcome to Hard Talk from the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Saka.

My guest today was a banker in India until he decided to invest in a new career, politics.

And when it came to choosing a political home, Syed Zafar Islam made a choice difficult for his own Muslim family to accept.

He became a loyal, ardent supporter of Narendra Modi

and his Hindu nationalist BJP Party. His loyalty was rewarded with nomination to a seat in the

upper chamber of the Indian Parliament, a position he held until 2022. Since then, he's acted as a BJP spokesman, a role which has seen him become

one of the party's most outspoken advocates in the national and international media. In recent months,

the roles required him to explain an unexpectedly poor BJP performance in India's recent parliamentary election. They lost seats and lost

their majority in the lower house. Mr Modi's government is now dependent on the support of two

smaller parties. So what went wrong? Has India tired of a Hindu nationalist agenda which critics condemn

as divisive and dangerous. Have rising inequality and

systemic rural poverty undermined Modi's grand claims to have transformed India into an economic

superpower. Given this unexpected political blow, will India's dominant politician change course?

Well, Syed Zafar Islam joins me now on the line from Delhi.

Welcome to Hard Talk.

Thank you very much.

Mr. Islam, you've had a few weeks to reflect now.

So why do you think your party, the BJP, did perform so badly, unexpectedly badly, in the recent parliamentary election?

I think those who has realized the outcome of the general election, they wouldn't make

this kind of comment purely because on the basis of the number of seats we have won,

because we are the largest political party in terms of the number of seats we have won,

and also in terms of the percentage of votes we have won and also in terms of the percentage

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