NEW DELHI — India’s ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has secured a majority of the seats in the Lok Sabha (the lower house of Parliament), winning the 2024 Indian general elections. However, this victory is seen pretty unconvincing and there is a question floating in Indian political corridors, “Is Modi Magic Over?”
Have a look at this table, Exit Polls had clearly given a mandate in favor of BJP-led NDA few days ago:
All the forecasts went wrong when results were declared yesterday. Out of 543 seats, BJP-led NDA could secure 292 seats while INDIA Alliance scored 234 seats.
Below is the data of last 3 performances of NDA in General Elections of 2014, 2019 and 2024:
Despite taking popular initiatives of Article 370, Ram Temple, Make In India, PM Jan Arogya Yojana, PM Awas Yojana, 100% electrification of Villages, free food grains to 80 crore people via PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana, excellent COVID-19 pandemic management, abolishment of Triple Talaq, PM Ujjwala Yojana, making India the 5th largest economy of the world, Digital & UPI revolution, Pradhanmantri Jan-Dhan Yojana etc, there seems to be a mismanagement in top BJP leadership.
Lets deep dive on causes of this disappointing performance:
- Lack of Strong Local Leaders : Take lessons from BJP versus Vasundhara Raje tussle and Jitan Ram Manjhi-Nitish Kumar clash, the Modi Government always feared a revolt within BJP and committed itself for a powerful centralized leadership. Its rumored that the top brass of BJP was in-secured about the growing popularity of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath and declined to approve tickets for his 35 chosen members in these General Elections. Amit Shah chose lesser-popular candidates instead ignoring the sentiments of party workers.
- Over-Dependency on Modi-Face : Narendra Modi is the biggest political figure in India, yet every popularity has its shelf-life. BJP won the elections of 2014, 2019 and 2024 on Modi-face only, but this time the scarcity of strong faces in states gave opposition a mileage. Indians heavily consider caste factor while voting and the USP of “Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas” and development didn’t work this time as expected.
- Election Campaigning: Incompetency of BJP Social media team let opposition build their narrative and they were able to convince people against NDA. INDIA alliance build a strong narrative of Manipur riots, Farmer agitation, unemployment and inflation while BHP’s online team went overconfident and did not care to tackle.
- Maharashtra Blunder: NCP leader Ajit Pawar have been facing the probe in Maharashtra’s ₹70,000-cr irrigation scam and BJP leaders had earlier tweeted that these leaders will soon land in jail. During the 2014 and 2019 state elections, the BJP had made the irrigation scam its main election weapon, targeting Pawar directly. But things took a U-turn when Ajit Pawar split the NCP and joined the BJP-Shiv Sena coalition on 2nd July, 2023. The loyal voters and workers of the Modi Government had to bite the dust.
- West Bengal Mismanagement: There has been various instances of violence in Mamta Banerjee-led state. BJP workers were killed, ED (Enforcement Directorate) team was attacked, but BJP’s central leadership did not take any action against TMC. The leadership only did a lip-service on Social Media accounts. They could not even took advantage of infamous Sandeshkhali Land-Grabbing and Sexual Harrassment Case . BJP’s candidate and Sandeshkhali victim, Rekha Patra, lost to the Trinamool Congress’s pick by a margin of over 3.3 lakh votes.
Overall, this “win” for BJP looks as good as a “loss”. For the next 5 years, they would be apprehensive about keeping the alliance with Nitish Kumar and Chandrababu Naidu . JD(U) and TDP have won 16 and 12 seats respectively and BJP, having scored 240, can’t afford to let them join INDIA Alliance. This means that the Modi govt. will always have to keep them in confidence before taking any strong decision like One-Nation-One-Election, Uniform Civil Code, Judiciary Reforms, Population Control Bill, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and CAA-NRC.
