Pratinav Mishra
Once again, Indian voters have defied predictions by delivering a verdict no pollsters saw coming. After 10 years of solitary rule, India gets a coalition government again. If BJP scores a third win, it does so with a reduced majority, which it retains only thanks to its coalition partners. Even though it maintains its vote share — from 37.3% to 37.6% — it loses majority through major losses of seats in UP (-26), Rajasthan (-10), Maharashtra (-12) and Haryana (-5). In total, BJP loses 82 seats.
Results from the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, which saw social justice and reservation take centre stage over the last two months, have now revealed that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has been reduced to 55 seats (from 77) out of the total 131 reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the House of the People. While the BJP lost 19 SC seats where it had incumbent MP’s across Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Haryana, Karnataka, Bihar, Punjab and West Bengal, it lost 10 of its ST seats across Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Rajasthan and West Bengal – with the Indian National Congress beating out the BJP in 12 of these SC seats and seven of these ST seats.
The opposition had tried to corner Modi on his government’s economic track record. While the country is the world’s fastest-growing major economy, voters told pollsters ahead of the election that high inflation and unemployment were key concerns for them. The BJP’s campaign slogan, “Abki baar, 400 paar” (This time, more than 400), set a target of 400 seats for its alliance, and 370 seats for the BJP itself. That pitch carried a “tone of overconfidence”, said Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, a Modi biographer, at a time when many in the Indian public were dealing with the lived realities of soaring prices, joblessness and income inequality so wide that it is now worse than during British colonial rule.
The BJP’s over-reliance on Narendra Modi and Amit Shah to win elections is costing it. While the duo by far remains the best election team any political party can hope for, their track record in retaining states has not been great. The Modi-Shah combination worked miracles for the BJP from 2013 to 2018, especially in those states where the party was in opposition. Secondly there is a limit to the BJP’s strategy of exploiting the wedge between dominant castes and non-dominant social groups in states. The BJP’s electoral success in Haryana, Maharashtra, and Jharkhand in 2014 was attributed to a successful consolidation of non-dominant social groups. For instance, in Jharkhand, a consolidation of ‘upper castes’ and OBC voters led to the party’s victory in 2014. After winning the assembly election, the BJP appointed chief ministers from non-dominant social communities all three states. Thirdly, it has been a common practice within the BJP and the Congress to appoint chief ministers without a mass base. It suits the national leadership in both the parties to have rubber-stamped CMs who are dependent on them for mobilisation. But this strategy is a double-edged sword.
The central leadership of a party cannot always campaign and win elections for its state leadership, especially if the election is being contested on local issues. However, if the state leader develops an independent base for herself, the central leadership becomes insecure.
