The reason is different for BJP and Congress. Congress never needed to do anything else, India has had considerable global soft power and peaceful social atmosphere under them.

Currently, BJP knows it has a very specific voter base (upper caste Kshatriyas/Brahmins/Baniyas ≈ 40%) within which people are starting to stop supporting Modi, because favours for Adani and big oligarchs. Modi wants to seize this moment to hang onto the balls of Xi and Putin, to become part of the new “vishwaguru” (world leader) polar hegemony, and become immortal in historical books for somehow uplifting India, even though India has become a trashy disturbed country since BJP came into power. This is the reason almost nobody knows or talks about. BJP knows the way it has thrown all of its critics and journalists in jail (and bought out all of TV news outlets) undemocratically, if they are elected out of power, all of them will find themselves jailed and possibly even hanged within months.

India’s needs for food and other goods is just an outcome of a great long term mutual relation with Russia, resulting in bilateral normalcy.