Prime Minister Narendra Modi greets supporters as he arrives at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) headquarters in New Delhi, India, Tuesday, June 4, 2024. Credit – Manish Swarup – AP Photo
PPolitical pundits and exit polls were quick to predict that Narendra Modi was set to serve a third term as India’s prime minister in this year’s elections, which started on April 19 and ended on June 1. The question was: would his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), win enough votes to claim a supermajority?
The answer became clear when the final results trickled in on Tuesday, June 4. With more than 50% of the votes countedthe BJP and its National Democratic Alliance (which consists of several right-wing, conservative regional parties) have so far won 290 seats in India’s 543-seat Lok Sabha – falling below the 400-seat threshold set by the alliance counts boasted that it would win, and in fact lost the one-party majority that Modi has enjoyed since the first election in 2014. The ruling party on its own has claimed 238 seats – also a stark difference from the BJP’s landslide victory in 2019, when she won an unprecedented 303 seats. seats.
In contrast, the opposition INDIA alliance – which consists of more than twenty opposition parties, including the Indian National Congress – won 235 seats, performing better than expected. Final results are expected late Tuesday or early Wednesday.
Under India’s electoral system, the party or alliance that wins more than 272 seats in the 543-member parliament can form a government. The voting took place in seven phases over six weeks and saw over 1 billion Indians go to the polls – making it the largest democratic election in the world.
The 73-year-old Modi, a charismatic but polarizing leader, will preside over a rare third consecutive term. Only one other Indian prime minister, Congress leader Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, has done this before. Modi was speaking at the BJP headquarters in Delhi on Tuesday evening praised the Indian electoral process and celebrated the achievements of the BJP. “No government has returned to power for the third time since 1962,” he said, adding that the vote share for the BJP had doubled in some areas.
But while Modi will likely be able to make progress on his promised Hindu nationalist agenda and his series of economic reforms, the BJP’s smaller-than-expected majority means he may face a more powerful opposition than at any time in the past decade. its implementation is difficult unless the BJP negotiates with smaller alliances and opposition leaders.
“This election is undoubtedly a rebuke to Modi and the BJP,” said Milan Vaishnav, director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “After 10 years in power, it was in many ways a referendum on the state of affairs and there are clearly many Indians who feel restless and uneasy.”
How did India vote?
To achieve a landslide victory, the BJP had to make electoral gains in two crucial areas. It had to break new ground in the southern states, which seemed unlikely given that it has traditionally had less influence among a diverse and more economically developed non-Hindi-speaking electorate. And more votes needed to be secured in strongholds like Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, which is seen as a bellwether for how the rest of the country will vote.
The BJP made stunning breakthroughs in the south, winning one seat in the left-wing state of Kerala, where it has never won before. It retained its stronghold in Karnataka and won 19 seats, compared to nine for INDIA. And it came evenly in Telangana, where the opposition defeated the BJP in the state elections last year by securing eight seats.
But surprisingly, the BJP performed unevenly across the Hindi belt, suffering perhaps its biggest defeat in Uttar Pradesh, where Modi inaugurated a Hindu temple in the city of Ayodhya just months ago, fulfilling a three-decade-old BJP promise and cementing his Hindu nationalist legacy. Early figures suggested the BJP alliance won just 35 of the 80 seats — a stark contrast to the 71 and 62 seats won in the 2014 and 2019 elections that helped the party’s rise to power in Delhi.
This time, a divisive campaign consolidated Muslim votes in the state for the opposition coalition formed between two major parties, the Samajwadi Party and the Congress. “The loss in Uttar Pradesh is particularly large because the state is the cradle of the Hindu nationalist movement,” said Gilles Vernier, a senior fellow at the Center for Policy Research in Delhi. “These results shatter the myth of (Modi’s) invincibility in national elections, especially in the Hindi-speaking north.”
The BJP swept through its other stronghold states including Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. In comparison, the opposition alliance made marginal gains in Bihar and Rajasthan, as well as Haryana and Punjab.
“The complexity of these elections is that they are more like a state-by-state contest, without a unifying national narrative,” says Vaishnav. “At some point, the popularity of the alternatives and other local factors also become important factors,” he continues.
What do the results say about the BJP’s electoral mandate?
In these elections, Modi campaigned under the slogan “Modi’s Guarantee,” referring to the more than 300 welfare programs that have provided benefits ranging from cooking gas to free housing to Indian citizens across the country. While these benefits were considered a major concern for voters, research also showed limited hard evidence by “plans that translate into votes.”
Modi and the BJP also boasted about reducing poverty in the world’s fifth-largest economy, with development high on the prime minister’s agenda. While India’s GDP grew 7.8% last quarter, rising inequality, rising costs of living and record high unemployment remained major concerns for voters, as evidenced by credible pre-poll surveys.
“The Narendra Modi government has ignored workplace dissatisfaction over economic problems and unemployment growth,” Verniers said. “This election could be the moment when economic reality catches up.”
As he enters his third term, Modi has put forward an ambitious economic reform agenda that he hopes will make India the world’s third-largest economy by 2047. However, the BJP’s failure to secure a majority means it now faces a challenge in implementing its plans. economic policy, unless he forms alliances with smaller parties. The impact was already reverberating across the Indian stock market on Tuesday when the Nifty 50 index was listed tumbled as much as 8.5% – the biggest single-day drop in more than four years – after rising to a record high on Monday as exit polls indicated a comfortable Modi victory.
Modi now faces a more powerful opposition than at any time in the past decade. During the elections, the INDIA alliance accused the government of crippling the opposition by jailing two state leaders and freezing Congress’s bank accounts.
“For the first time since he became prime minister in 2014, Narendra Modi will have to effectively share power with coalition partners,” says Verniers. “This is uncharted territory for a leader who has always exercised power alone.”
But the results are undoubtedly a personal setback for the prime minister, whose face has been the central promise of the BJP campaign this election – seen on billboards, posters and campaigns across the country – and who has never had to rely on coalition partners for his policy. survival.
“Only time will tell whether he will learn the art of reconciliation and power-sharing, or follow the path of autocratization to compensate for the loss of political ground,” Vernier added.
“This is the most important question facing India today.”
Write to Astha Rajvanshi op astha.rajvanshi@time.com.
