Narendra Modi will become the first incumbent prime minister to return to office for a third consecutive term, 62 years after Jawahar Lal Nehru’s hattrick in 1962. In 2019, Modi became the first prime minister to return with a majority, 48 years after Indira Gandhi first achieved the milestone.
Return To Coalition Politics
This time, of course, Modi’s BJP will be helped across the halfway mark as India returns to a period of coalition politics after a hiatus of 10 years. A win, of course, is a win. And the NDA is still very well placed to deliver effective governance, especially when it rests on a fulcrum as substantial as that of the BJP.
BJP’s Hegemony Sheathed
But it is also true that a humbled BJP will have to learn to rule on terms that may not always be set by it. While it is true the prime minister has never personally lost a major election but that doesn’t mean he has no experience in making compromises to stay in power. In Karnataka, Bihar, Jammu & Kashmir and Maharashtra, the BJP ran effective coalition governments under the aegis of the prime minister. Yet, there is no gainsaying that coalition politics can be frustrating and distracting in the company of temperamental and demanding allies.
Affirmation of India’s Democracy
The weakened mandate that has chastened the BJP is an affirmation of the robustness of India’s democracy and the institutions that guard it. This is not a country sliding backwards into the abyss of tyranny. Authoritarian leaders never voluntarily subject themselves to any sort of inquisition at the hands of the public. Quite clearly, Modi is very much a democrat willing to let the people have their say.
India’s democracy has set down deep roots. It has matured, voters are spoilt for choice. No result is pre-ordained, and no precept is sacrosanct except one: performance pays.
Modi’s Appeal Largely Intact
And that’s why the BJP projected Modi front and centre. The party realised that Modi’s personal credibility was the only guarantee of a creditable showing in the face of ten years of anti-incumbency exacerbated by twin convulsions.
First, the deflating impact of Covid-19 pandemic on job creation and industry in the country. And second, a conflict in Europe that has inflated the price Indians need to pay to simply keep their heads above water. That the prime minister has emerged from this maelstrom relatively unscathed is still a remarkable feat. Some other top global leaders haven’t been half as fortunate.
The BJP will also take heart from certain positives.
BJP’s Gain in Loss
For one, the knowledge that it is by far the single largest party with more than double the number of seats than the Congress. And that its vote share has more or less held steady, which proves that the party is still the first choice of the voters across India.
BJP’s seats overall may be down by a little over fifty and it might have lost in its twin citadels – Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra – but it has nevertheless broken fresh ground. In Odisha, the BJP has emerged as the ruling party at both the state and national levels. In the South, it has made impressive gains. In Andhra, the NDA will have its government at the state level. It will also have a hefty contingent of parliamentarians from the state. In Telangana, it has emerged as a major force. It has opened its account in Kerala. Even in Tamil Nadu where it has flattered to deceive, the BJP has grown.
This is the first time since 1989 that a national party leading a third front has won a double-digit vote share and ended up a runner-up in nine seats in Tamil Nadu. This proves that the disaffection with the BJP was localised to a few states. And that in the absence of one overriding issue, local factors played a role in these stressed geographies.
But a lot else has also gone wrong.
Breach in BJP’s Social Engineering
The BJP has seen its support among the depressed classes dwindle in the Hindi heartland, especially in Uttar Pradesh. For a variety of reasons, these non-jatav Dalits and non-Yadav OBCs have deserted the BJP. The prime minister has always seen himself as the greatest benefactor of these classes. Their goodwill had powered the BJP to two terms with massive majorities. The BJP will have to introspect why and how they squandered their beneficence.
Imported Leaders
Simultaneously, the BJP may have also squandered the goodwill of some of their own cadre. Putting “winnability above all”, the BJP lowered the entry-level threshold substantially. Many leaders taken in laterally had little in common with the BJP’s ideological disposition or the Sangh’s cultural outlook. There are murmurs that these imports served only to douse the morale of the BJP worker and the Sangh cadre that may not have wholeheartedly campaigned.
In the end analysis, to merely view the result of the 2024 election as a barometer of Modi’s electability would be to reduce the consequentiality of the contest. The 2024 election was unique because it will be documented as not merely a competition between leaders but between their vastly differing take on the “idea of India.”
Posterity will judge if the better idea won. But today, a vast number of people have certainly told us that with a few important caveats, they still mainly trust the agency and vision of PM Modi to secure their future.
Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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