With most of India’s 640 million votes now counted after six weeks of elections, the world’s – and history’s – biggest pro-democracy movement appears to have landed a major surprise.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, fell short of winning the 272 seats needed for a majority in India’s lower house of parliament (the lower house of parliament, which has 543 seats), but together with its allies the BJP still has a majority. The opposition United India, led by the Indian National Congress party, won 222 seats.
These figures are in stark contrast to the 2019 results, in which the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won 353 seats, of which 303 were won by the BJP alone.
At the heart of this change were a series of political upheavals that seemed to transform India’s political landscape.
Al Jazeera is tracking some of the biggest surprises and upsets as they unfold.
Uttar Pradesh: Close contest in Varanasi and rise of SP
Uttar Pradesh (UP), ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) since 2017, has a total of 80 assembly constituencies. As India’s largest state with a population of over 240 million, it holds the key to determining who rules New Delhi. Moreover, both Prime Minister Modi and Indian National Congress leader Rahul Gandhi are contesting from different constituencies in the state.
In 2019, the NDA won 64 seats, of which the BJP alone won 62. The Indian National Congress won only one seat, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) won 10 and the Samajwadi Party (SP) won five.
However, the outcome in 2024 is likely to be very different, with the SP winning 37 seats, the Congress winning six and the Union of India winning a total of 43 seats.
Meanwhile, the BJP won 33 seats, while its alliance led in the other three. Most shocking was its defeat in Faizabad constituency, home to the Ram temple of Ayodhya, which Modi consecrated in January. Built on the site of the Babri Mosque, which was destroyed by Hindu mobs in 1992, the temple was a centrepiece of the BJP’s election campaign.
Political analyst and Hindi professor Apoorvanand told Al Jazeera that the SP-Congress alliance had worked better this time around, adding that the chemistry between SP leader Akhilesh Yadav and Gandhi was stronger and “that has filtered down too”.
Apart from securing its usual Muslim and Yadav support base, the SP has also expanded into other marginalised communities, Mr Apoorvanand said, adding that growing dissatisfaction with the BJP among those under 35 was also a factor in the party’s loss of influence in northern states.
“I have spoken to young people in every part of Uttar Pradesh and they are angry at the BJP,” he added, explaining that this is due to a disconnect between the utopian fantasy of a Hindu state that the BJP has tried to highlight and the reality of rising unemployment hitting voters hard.
“People were wondering what was the point of the Hindu national utopia if we could not live with dignity,” he said.
In Varanasi, Modi’s constituency, the Congress candidate Ajay Rai appears to have significantly narrowed the margin of victory for the prime minister in 2019. Modi won the seat five years ago by a margin of 500,000 votes. This time, his margin of victory was 152,000 votes.
In contrast, Mr Gandhi won his own constituency, Rai Bareli, by a margin of 390,000 votes.
In nearby Amethi, the BJP’s Smriti Irani also lost to the Indian National Congress’ Kishori Lal. In 2019, Ms. Irani conquered the Gandhi family stronghold, defeating Rahul Gandhi, who had held the seat since 2014, by 55,000 votes.
West Bengal: Trinamool defends the fort
The key eastern state is currently ruled by the opposition Trinamool Congress (TMC), a reluctant member of the Indian Union.
In the 2019 elections, the BJP made significant progress compared to 2014, winning 19 of the 42 seats in West Bengal. The TMC won 22 seats and the National Conference won two.
Exit polls before the vote count had predicted that the BJP would win most of the seats in the state, potentially reducing the TMC’s numbers.
But on Tuesday, that prediction proved to be inaccurate: the TMC won 29 seats and the BJP just 12. The remaining seats were won by the Indian National Congress.
Kerala: How the BJP broke through the final barrier
The southern state has long been a Left stronghold and the BJP, which campaigns on a Hindu-majority platform, has struggled to win there.
That all changed this year when the party’s Suresh Gopi won the Thrissur constituency by a margin of 74,686 votes, becoming the BJP’s first MP from the Kerala Legislative Assembly.
The Congress won 14 seats in southern states.
So how did the BJP manage to do this? Part of it, says political analyst Apoorvanand, was “attempting to align and collaborate with Islamophobic elements within Kerala’s Christian community.”
Hindus make up 55% of the state’s population, followed by Muslims at 27% and Christians at 18% – the two minority groups that together make up almost half the population and are powerful electorally.
But in recent years, critics say the BJP has sought to win over some of the state’s Christian votes, as well as Hindu votes, by presenting Muslims in the state as a threat.
Apoorvanand pointed to the “love jihad” conspiracy theory, which claims that Muslim men are deliberately marrying Hindu or Christian women in an attempt to convert them to Islam. The theory has been widely debunked, but as Apoorvanand noted, it “originates in Kerala” and has been promoted by some Christian clergy.
‘Politics of humiliation’: How the BJP lost its Maharashtra project
The Bharatiya Janata Party and its allied parties suffered heavy defeats in the western state of Maharashtra, while the Indian National Congress and its allied parties made great gains.
The opposition Indian Alliance (which includes the Indian National Congress, Shiv Sena and Socialist Party) has won 29 of the state’s 48 seats and is leading by a small margin in one more. The Indian National Congress alone is leading in 13 seats, and the BJP is leading in 10.
Apoorvanand said the results were not surprising as exit polls had predicted a landslide victory for the BJP and its allies in the state.
Apoorvanand attributed the result to “the way the BJP has been operating in the last five years – humiliating political parties and state leaders.” He said the BJP’s “politics of humiliation” had created resentment among voters against the party.
Traditionally, the BJP has allied with the regional Shiv Sena party, but over the past five years that alliance has fallen apart and critics have accused the BJP of engineering a split within the Shiv Sena.
“This was the last thing the people of Maharashtra could bear,” Apoorvanand said. “What we are expecting in Maharashtra is applicable to the rest of India as well. It is a kind of normalcy in politics.”
Karnataka: BJP has bent, not broken
In 2019, the BJP won 25 of Karnataka’s 28 constituencies, along with two other NDA candidates. The Congress party managed to win just one seat.
The BJP won state elections last year for its party, but exit polls predicted a repeat of the 2019 result, especially since the BJP has also allied with the regional Janata Dal (secular) party.
But this year, although the BJP emerged as the biggest winner, it won just 17 seats. The JD(S) won in two constituencies and the Congress won 10 seats.
“The BJP’s stronghold remains in coastal states such as Mangalore. [Mangaluru]”The BJP has not lost its base,” Apoorvanand said. The key point, he said, is that “its base has eroded, but it has not completely lost its influence.”
Karnataka is crucial for the BJP – it is the only southern state that Modi’s party has won.
