India on June 4 delivered a historic verdict for the 2024 Indian Lok Sabha elections. While the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by the Bharatiya Janata Party formed the government with over 290 seats, the opposition Indian Union also took heart in its performance by winning over 230 seats. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP will run the coalition government for the next five years.
Ashish Ranjan is a data scientist and election analyst who has worked for organisations such as the Centre for Research on Developing Societies, Centre for Policy Research and Trivedi Centre for Political Data at Ashoka University. He has researched the science of election analysis and election polling and currently runs his own organisation. He is a senior journalist. Frontline Columnist Saba Naqvi discusses the results of the general elections and the key takeaways for political parties. Excerpts:
Did Narendra Modi lose this election?
The answer is yes. In terms of numbers, the BJP is 32 seats short of a majority. But with Nitish Kumar, Chandrababu Naidu and a few others in the coalition, the authoritarian nature of the current government is clear.
The BJP may be the largest party with over 240 seats. But what happened in Maharashtra in 2019 may happen again, where the BJP failed to form the government despite being the largest party. Modi lost this election completely on his own terms.
Has the BJP lost its vote share and the Opposition has regained it?
The BJP still managed to get 37% of the vote, roughly the same as in 2019. Its coalition partners also received a significant share of the vote, but importantly, after two elections the Indian National Congress managed to get 4% of the vote, meaning that its vote share now sits at over 23%.
More importantly, the Congress won double-digit votes in Uttar Pradesh, a state where its popularity has been steadily declining. What is interesting this time is that Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party has [SP] He continues to lose the 2017 elections [Assembly]2019 [Lok Sabha]and 2022 [Assembly] But they won more seats than the BJP in Uttar Pradesh.
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In the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, the SP got a very healthy vote share, so will that vote share translate to the Lok Sabha this time?
In the 2022 state assembly elections too, the SP alliance won around 37% vote share, which was also a historic record for the party. However, the BJP did not lose any vote share and the difference in vote share was around 4-5%, which is why the BJP won a majority.
What is significant in Uttar Pradesh is not that the BJP won fewer seats than the SP, but the revival of the social justice party. [Rashtriya Janata Dal] He is leading in terms of vote share.
In North India, Mandal parties such as the RJD in Bihar and the SP in Uttar Pradesh saw continuous growth in the 1990s but hit a low in 2014. A decade later, they have made a comeback. In Bihar, the RJD is no longer leading in seats but its vote share has increased.
Besides the SP itself, are you seeing Congress also making a comeback on its own? Is it possible to gauge that as both were in alliance?
Yes, of course. When I went to Uttar Pradesh, I met people from the Pasi community (a Dalit group in Uttar Pradesh) who had been voting for the BSP for a long time. After a long time, they were moving towards the Congress-SP alliance. They said, “We have never voted for the SP, but the Congress is our party, so we will vote for them.” Also, many people from the lower castes, especially the Dalits, felt that the BSP was losing its support base and now they needed to go back to their original party, the Congress. So the Congress got back the support of the caste groups that had been marginalized for a long time.
The Indian National Congress has a Dalit leader, Mallikarjun Kharge, but with Mayawati’s decline, will we see a revival of the party across India?
This election has nothing to do with personality cults. Every person has a role to play and that should be respected. It’s not about me beating somebody or somebody beating me. This is a collective achievement, which is why no single party will win a majority over the long term.
In Bihar Savarna [privileged caste individuals] But we were unable to defeat the BJP coalition. Can you elaborate a bit more on why?
In Bihar, the JD(U) [Janata Dal (United)]Bihar, the Mandal party, was ahead of the BJP and other parties in terms of number of seats. Bihar gave power to the NDA party, an alliance of the JD(U) and the BJP, for most of the time, except in 2014 when the JD(U) did not enter the fray and it became a three-way fight. In fact, Bihar is the only state where the BJP has not been able to rule in the Hindi speaking regions.
What happened in Maharashtra?
I have also visited Maharashtra and I have found that the people of Maharashtra have realised that they have been cheated as their original parties, the NCP and the Shiv Sena, have split up due to a power struggle. Of course, in terms of vote share, the BJP is the leading party as it contested more seats than any other party.
However, OBCs and Marathas, especially [those affected by] The Maratha reservation was the hardest hit in the Indian subcontinent. People were also [Eknath] Shinde and Ajit Pawar’s NCP almost fooled them, and Ajit Pawar Shinde’s electoral bond scam and political machinations have caused considerable damage to the people of Maharashtra in this election.
There doesn’t seem to be any sympathy for the two arrested Chief Ministers in Delhi and Jharkhand.Is this difficult to measure or is it a state difference?
States are different. You will see some reflections in state assembly elections. Demographically, state assembly elections are different from Lok Sabha elections. Jharkhand has a tribal population of 26-27 percent, but they are concentrated in a few areas and not dispersed. In Delhi, it is mostly middle class.
“It’s the first time in 24 years since Modi became the chief minister of Gujarat that he has lost an election. The beauty of democracy is that even a strong leader can be defeated by the people.”
The Prime Minister said that he may have divine powers and meditated on Vivekananda rock. People said this was the last breakthrough in South India. But ideologically, it was really about Tamil Nadu, because the ideology that dominates Tamil Nadu politics is the DMK, which has a Dravidian ideology. Sanatana DharmaIt has become a big issue because of Tamil Nadu politics but it seems that not much is being done in Tamil Nadu. Am I right?
Yes, that’s true. The BJP didn’t get the vote share it had hoped for in Tamil Nadu. But even with state president K. Annamalai’s meager vote share concentrated in a few areas, many believed he could win.
The growth of any political party is based on two factors – organic growth and inorganic growth.For example, the growth of BJP in West Bengal is inorganic growth, not organic growth.
Why inorganic?
Because it is an outsider party. As it grows with the BJP in North India, especially in Western India, it becomes an organic party. They have cadres, they have an ideological base. In West Bengal, most of their leaders are from the Left parties or the Trinamool Party.
In Tamil Nadu, even when the BJP got 10 percent, it was a defeat. It was just an anti-incumbency vote win and they contested more seats this time. So the party needs to work for a long time. They need to build an organisation and produce more leaders, not just one.
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In this era of patronage, when huge sums of money flow into political parties, the CPI(ML) has been raising funds with donations of Rs 20. Therefore, if it wins even one seat, it will mean a lot symbolically.
Yes, of course. That is real electoral politics, going to the voters and the public as party members and telling them this is our promise, this is our candidate, this is our manifesto.
I would be very happy to see an election campaign where candidates go to the people, collect funds and then contest because we have seen how corrupt political funds have created our democracy through electoral bonds etc. And maybe the people of India are giving us a way out of this situation.
Yes. You may have seen reports on social media about the Congress candidate in Madhya Pradesh reaching out to voters.
But let’s not forget, this is the first time in 24 years since Modi became the Chief Minister of Gujarat that he has lost an election. This is the beauty of democracy: even a strong leader can be defeated by the people.
But do you think highlighting questions like EVMs, Form 17C, role of electors etc. has made candidates more wary?
Yes. A video of a BJP candidate going viral saying that they needed 400 seats to make a difference. And then, in the first phase of voting in Uttar Pradesh, BSP’s Aakash Anand explicitly said: “You can sit down and play how you like.”You are leaving this world for this world. [Why do they want 400 seats? They want to change the Constitution, they want to end reservation]”
During fieldwork in Saharsa, Bihar in 2015, this person belonging to the SC community said he would not vote for the BJP. [RSS chief] Mohan Bhagwat said he would abolish reservations, saying that no one in his family had been able to benefit from them and he strongly believes that future generations should not be deprived of that opportunity.
What happened in Rajasthan?
Jat politics is at play in Rajasthan. Jat farmers in the belt that includes Rajasthan, Punjab and parts of Haryana have been unhappy with the BJP.
YSRCP and Naveen Patnaik neither worked with nor opposed the BJP or Modi, they were thought to be very wise but now they have lost.
In a dualism, you have to choose one or the other; you can’t be both.
People have fought for the Constitution of India. Can you say that?
Yes. The great thing about this election is that the people have woken up to what the Constitution is and what they need to do for it. The people of Uttar Pradesh said they would fight for the Constitution.
