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Meanwhile, the opposition Indian National Development Inclusive Alliance (INA) has performed unexpectedly well, defying almost every exit poll prediction. The alliance is winning 233 seats (including the lead), while the Congress party, which struggled to cross the 50 mark in the last two elections, is leading and is close to the 100 mark.
Though the Congress’ performance was commendable compared to the last two elections, the real show stealers in the Bharat Bloc were the regional parties Samajwadi Party, Trinamool Congress and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, which together with smaller contributions from Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena and Sharad Pawar’s NCP won more than a hundred seats, taking the alliance’s total to 233. It may not be able to form the government, but the country is likely to get a strong opposition after a decade, provided the alliance stays intact and there are no defections.
In Uttar Pradesh, which sends the most MPs—80—to the Lok Sabha, the Samajwadi Party turned the tables on the BJP, and the alliance won 43 of the 80 seats (including the lead). In 2019, the NDA had won 64 seats in the state. In Maharashtra, which has the next largest number of MPs—the Congress, the NCP and Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena took 29 seats (including the lead)—the NDA had won 41 seats in 2019. In Bengal, where national partners the Congress, the Left parties and the Trinamool Congress fought each other, Mamata Banerjee’s party increased its tally from seven to 29 (including the lead). In Tamil Nadu, the alliance was leading in all 39 seats (including the lead), with the DMK again leading.
Political chaos in Maharashtra meant the elections would be unpredictable, but it is Uttar Pradesh, with the BJP’s Ram Mandir issue at the centre, that has thrown up the biggest surprise. Ram Mandir was not the primary election issue, as the BJP had hoped and as Mint reported last month. In fact, most voters in the states, and especially Uttar Pradesh, did not mention Ram Mandir as an election issue. The BJP’s overreliance on its trump card has clearly not paid off.
Finally, the worst for the BJP came from Ayodhya. The saffron party lost the Faizabad seat, of which Ayodhya is a part, to the SP. This happened despite building the Ram temple, airport, railway station and expressway; despite the temple corridor, five-star hotels and the influx of tourists and the money that came with them; and despite the Yogi Adityanath government’s focus on law and order and numerous welfare schemes from both the Centre and the state. What happened in the constituency reflects the discontent against the BJP across the state.
In a way, 2024 has become more like a traditional Indian election, where constituencies and local factors matter as much as national narratives, unlike 2014 and 2019, when the only question was whether Narendra Modi should become prime minister.
The BJP story
There are four big achievements for BJP in this election.
One, the brand of Prime Minister Modi is no longer enough to win elections on its own. Modi’s popularity peaked in many states in 2019 and to that extent, it has stabilised. Still, the BJP is gaining new ground in states such as Telangana and Odisha, where the PM’s popularity is rising, but not enough to offset the losses in key states.
Second, state leadership is equally important. Apart from Gujarat, which is a Modi-Amit Shah bastion, one state that has put the BJP in a good position is Madhya Pradesh, where the party won all 29 seats. Former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s massive popularity and his government’s welfare work gave the BJP a big lead there, as was evident at the grassroots level, where voters pledged their support for the ‘BJP’.Uncle’This factor was conspicuously missing in other heartland states like Haryana and Rajasthan, as Chouhan is fondly known, where the BJP had performed tremendously in 2019 but has suffered severe losses this election due to weak state leadership.
Third, the Centre’s welfare promise is strong, but it weakens when the opposition party in the state also sings the same tune. For example, in West Bengal, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s own welfare schemes are strong enough to outshine the Centre’s. Voters, especially women, cite her popular schemes like Laxmi Bhandar more than Modi’s initiatives. The BJP had hoped to do better in West Bengal in 2019, but it lost seats.
And fourth, a united Opposition can pose a much greater challenge by gaining ground in each state, even in the absence of an overarching national narrative, as happened in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra.
“I think the verdict clearly sends a message for reform. The BJP will be in government, but it will need to be more accommodative in its dealings with the opposition, while the opposition can no longer complain of being voiceless,” said Chandrachur Singh, professor of political science at Delhi University’s Hindu College. “The verdict can be read as a mixed bag for all. For the NDA, it provides strength, but makes them cautious about future prospects, while for the opposition it gives them little power now, but perhaps brightens their prospects if they play the constructive role required of a responsible opposition.”
Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, senior journalist and author of Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times, believes the prime minister will now have to become more accommodating with his NDA allies. “Going forward, to keep his government afloat, Modi will have to demonstrate skill in taking others along and building consensus. He will have to restart parliamentary procedures such as referring to standing committees, which had almost completely stopped,” Mukhopadhyay said.
Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra
The biggest headline of this election is undoubtedly Uttar Pradesh. The BJP had everything in its favour in the state, from a popular chief minister to a record on law and order, the Ram temple, a decimated opposition and a landslide victory in the 2022 assembly elections.
What appears to be working against the BJP are its excessive reliance on the Ram Mandir issue, as well as the lack of vacancies in government jobs, the paper leak scandal, inflation and the Agniveer scheme.
The caste composition of the constituencies and the Samajwadi Party’s strategy of fielding only five candidates from the Yadav community worked in its favour, helping it garner votes beyond its core Yadav-Muslim vote bank. It also dented the non-Yadav OBC vote and turned a large chunk of the Scheduled Caste vote to its side. Both of these are vote banks on which the BJP has relied heavily.
The Congress-SP alliance also helped prevent a division in Muslim votes, which went almost en masse to the alliance.
Mukhopadhyay said, “Economic issues also played a major role in this decision and Prime Minister Narendra Modi failed to create a comprehensive story. Especially in UP, the strategy of the opposition was very effective. This is the biggest embarrassing moment for Modi electorally.”
Meanwhile, in Maharashtra, it is a case of too many cooks spoiling the dish. A common complaint among voters was, “It’s all khichdi here” and it seems it was reflected in the results as well. Eventually, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena and Sharad Pawar’s NCP outpolled their rival factions. Uddhav was seen as the rightful heir to the Shiv Sena legacy, while Pawar’s patriarch got voter sympathy for what he saw as the ‘betrayal’ by his nephew and NDA ally Ajit Pawar.
Wellness factor
As expected, every political party touted its welfare schemes during the election campaign. For the NDA, ‘facilities’ remained a talking point this election too and this is perhaps the issue that helped the BJP emerge as the single largest party, thanks to schemes for rural housing, free ration, water, subsidised gas and cash payments through the PM Kisan Nidhi.
But unlike 2019 when welfare had carried the BJP to a 303 mark, 2024 was different for two reasons. First, many of these central schemes are not new, voters have already rewarded the BJP for these in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections as well as several state elections. Voters now view these schemes as a given and not with the 2019 enthusiasm. It is in states where BJP state governments have a solid welfare record that the BJP is benefiting from the double engine model. Madhya Pradesh and Assam are direct examples of this, with voters in these states citing state government schemes like Ladli Laxmi and Orunodoi more than Modi government initiatives. The NDA won 10 of the 14 seats in Assam (including the lead).
Second, it is now clear to all political parties that welfare is a major election issue and they are mastering the art of selling their programmes to voters, giving tough competition to the BJP.
Tina Fatigue
Another factor that has been a mixed bag for the BJP is its ‘there is no alternative’ (TINA). Some voters actually voted for the party because they felt a lack of a national alternative. The absence of a pan-India alternative to Modi meant that India failed to become the largest bloc.
On the other hand, it is bad news for the BJP that the Tina factor was not discussed at all in this election. It was not a factor in 2019, as the vote for the BJP was primarily an enthusiasm vote for Modi. However, in the 2024 election, many voters were looking for something else.
Kuldeep Singh from Sehore in Madhya Pradesh summed up the thinking of some voters in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, “We have been seeing Modi for 10 years now and his work has been good, but perhaps a new prime minister would not mind trying. Today, there is no PM candidate on the other side, so we are supporting Modi. But tomorrow, if a candidate comes up, it will not be easy for the BJP. Boredom is inevitable.”
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