5 reasons why BJP failed to win a majority in 2024 Lok Sabha polls

Belying the exit poll results, the latest Election Commission data for results and trends for the 2024 Lok Sabha election show the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) failing to win a majority of its own — a first under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership.

The BJP looks to settle down with a number between 240 and 250. This means the BJP will have to depend on its alliance partners, particularly the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the Janata Dal-United (JDU). The two parties are in the zone of winning about 30-32 Lok Sabha seats together, making Modi 3.0 possible based on pre-poll arrangement.

The biggest setback for the BJP came from Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal, the three biggest states in terms of sending members to the Lok Sabha. They collectively have 170 Lok Sabha seats. The BJP had won 103 on its own and 123 with its allies. This time around, the BJP-led NDA’s score is 64 — the same number that it secured from Uttar Pradesh alone in 2019.

So, what happened? Why did the BJP fail to secure a majority in the Lok Sabha in this election?

Voter fatigue

As the initial phases of the Lok Sabha election showed, there was fatigue among the voters, who turned up in fewer numbers in terms of percentage than the previous two parliamentary polls. The 10 years of the Modi government and the BJP’s narrative that it was winning the Lok Sabha election comfortably contributed to the formation of voter fatigue.

To many, the outcome of the Lok Sabha election was a foregone conclusion making their participation in the exercise not so eventful. On the other hand, those strongly opposing the politics of the BJP had a strong motivation to express themselves in the election.

This can be corroborated from the fact that except Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Haryana, where the BJP is in power, anti-incumbency does not seem to be a factor in this election. In states such as Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar, the BJP had swept the polls in 2019. And it was only expected that the Opposition would cover some lost grounds. Voter fatigue in those states might have played a role in the dip of the BJP’s share there.

Opposition unity

In both the 2014 and the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the BJP was on the rise, and the Opposition didn’t have a national coalition. A united Opposition bloc presents a serious threat to any ruling party or coalition in an Indian election given that no party has come to power in New Delhi with over 50% vote share — including during the tenures of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. In the 2019 election, the BJP-led NDA polled about 45% votes, meaning 55% of those who voted did not choose the ruling coalition.

This time around, the Opposition formed a coalition, however loose it was but they offered an option before the anti-BJP voters in the national election. Though the TMC, the CPM and the AAP contested against the Congress in their respective strongholds of West Bengal, Kerala and Punjab, they presented a united contest against the BJP on more than 200 Lok Sabha seats. This worked well especially in big states of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra for the INDIA bloc that the Opposition parties formed.

Resurgence of regional players

The mercurial rise of the BJP in the 2014 Lok Sabha election pushed regional parties into the periphery of the national politics in a departure from the trend of the past two decades. In fact, regional parties started playing a decisive role post the fall of the VP Singh government in 1990. The PV Narasimha Rao government was a minority government, depending for its survival on regional players like the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM).

From 1996, when the BJP emerged as the single-largest party but resigned before the government could prove its majority, regional parties dominated the national political scene until 2014, when the saffron party secured a majority of its own. Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh had tough times managing the affairs of the central government with regional party leaders — from Tamil Nadu in south to Uttar Pradesh in north.

With the BJP securing a majority of its own — a first in 30 years — and Prime Minister Narendra Modi emerging as a towering leader, regional parties lost their bargaining power in national politics. The 2024 Lok Sabha election may give them their bargaining power once again.

The BJP saw a dramatic surge in the 2014 Lok Sabha election, marking a significant shift in the Indian political landscape. This ascent effectively marginalised regional parties, which had been influential players on the national stage for the preceding two decades. The genesis of regional parties’ influence can be traced back to the aftermath of the V.P. Singh government’s collapse in 1990. Subsequently, the PV Narasimha Rao-led government, which was a minority administration, relied heavily on the support of regional entities such as the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) to maintain its tenure.

The political dominance of regional parties became more pronounced from 1996 onwards, playing a pivotal role in shaping the national political narrative. Stalwarts like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh, who served as prime ministers, often found themselves navigating complex alliances and managing delicate relationships with regional party leaders, whose influence spanned from the southern state of Tamil Nadu* to the northern heartland of Uttar Pradesh.

The landscape, however, underwent a radical transformation with the BJP’s landmark victory in 2014, where it secured an absolute majority, an achievement not seen in three decades. The emergence of Narendra Modi as a preeminent figure in Indian politics further consolidated the BJP’s position in 2019, diminishing the leverage that regional parties once wielded.

However, the 2024 Lok Sabha election may have brought back regional parties in the mix of national power politics. They appear to have regained some of their lost clout. The BJP has paid the price for being the singular dominant political entity in the country.

Complacent cadre

There were reports that the BJP cadres were not as actively involved in the election process as they were in the previous two editions of the Lok Sabha polls. They reportedly believed that the popularity of PM Modi was enough for the BJP to secure the votes of the electorate, whose composition has markedly changed from 2014.

A kid who was just eight years old was a voter in this year’s election. Her political worldview could be contrastingly different from those of the slightly older and elderly voters who had incrementally favoured the BJP in 2014 and 2019. This also explains why there was frenetic messaging from the central leadership of the BJP to its cadres for continued canvassing despite soaring temperatures.

OBC politics

The Opposition tried to build a narrative that the BJP would alter the reservation provision for them in government jobs and higher education. The Congress and other parties of the INDIA bloc promised to replicate the Bihar model of caste survey across states and also at the national level.

OBCs are single-largest community voters in several states including Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Haryana where the BJP has performed below its own expectations.

Reports show that OBC voters in states like Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra went with the dominant Mandal party, the Samajwadi Party, in big numbers. The BJP had been winning their support in recent elections. In Bihar, the BJP did not suffer the loss to the same extent as the chief minister who got the caste survey done — JDU president Nitish Kumar — fought the Lok Sabha election with the BJP.