West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC leader Mamata Banerjee (left) and Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray (right). (PTI)
While the Indian Union may have decided to wait and see how things develop in the NDA camp and “take appropriate steps at the right time”, some parties in the opposition alliance, particularly the TMC and Shiv Sena (UBT) and to an extent the AAP, are working hard to explore options to increase the numbers in the coalition to keep the BJP in check.
According to sources, West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC leader Mamata Banerjee spoke to SP’s Akhilesh Yadav on the day the results were announced and asked him to contact both N. Chandrababu Naidu of the TDP, a comrade of her father Mulayam Singh Yadav since the United Front days of the mid-1990s, and Nitish Kumar of the JD(U), who also had a good relationship with the veteran SP leader.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP won a landslide victory by winning 303 seats, of which 224 were won with more than 50% of the votes. This time around, not only did the BJP fall short of a majority with only 240 seats, but it also won just 156 seats with more than 50% of the votes.
In 2019, the BJP won 224 seats with more than 50% of the votes, of which seven seats received more than 70% of the votes, 77 seats received between 60% and 70%, and a further 140 seats received between 50% and 60% of the votes.
In 2024, the party again won seven seats with more than 70% of the vote, but with vote shares between 60% and 70%, it won only 39 seats, half the number it won in 2019. The number of seats it won with vote shares between 50% and 60% also fell from 140 to 110.
