The BJP-led NDA is set to return to power with Prime Minister Narendra Modi reportedly being sworn in on Saturday.
The campaigning for the elections, which was conducted from 19 April to 1 June in seven phases, saw Prime Minister Narendra Modi hold more than 300 rallies, travelling tirelessly almost every day to multiple locations.
But how has the political landscape of the country changed since 2014?
Let’s take a closer look:
2014
In 2014, the BJP had been out of power for ten years after the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA with its ‘India Shining’ slogan lost its majority.
The country, which had seen a decade of Congress rule, was fed up of the myriad scandals and corruption scams.
The BJP projected Narendra Modi – then the chief minister of Gujarat – as its prime ministerial face.
The BJP secured the first majority since 1984 at the election, on a promise of reviving manufacturing and investment to create millions of jobs.
The party which won 282 seats – enough to form a majority in Parliament on its own – netted a 31 per cent vote share
Meanwhile, the National Democratic Alliance won 336 seats with a 38.5 per cent vote share.
The election saw the BJP dominate the Hindi heartland with the alliance picking up a mammoth 73 seats in UP, 41 seats in Maharashtra, 31 seats in Bihar, and 27 seats in Madhya Pradesh.
The NDA also made massive gains in Gujarat (26 seats), Rajasthan (25 seats), Delhi (7 seats) Himachal Pradesh (4 seats) and Uttarakhand (five seats), Jharkhand (12 seats), Chhattisgarh (11 seats) and Haryana (7 seats).
The jaw-dropping performance was dubbed the ‘Modi wave.’
His pledge to overhaul the flagging economy won over voters, along with his rags-to-riches story and reputation as a clean and efficient chief minister.
The UPA, on the other hand, was reduced to just 60 seats – of which the Congress, then lead by Rahul Gandhi, won 44 seats.
The grand old party won a 19.3 per cent vote share.
The Congress picked up just two sedates in Uttar Pradesh – in its strongholds of Amethi and Raebareli.
The UPA and Congress won just 12 seats in the Hindi heartland.
Modi was sworn in as Prime Minister of India on 26 May, 2014.
Modi, the country’s 15th prime minister, replaced Manmohan Singh.
2019
In 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was seeking his second straight term.
While most pollsters said that the BJP would return, they did predict a reduced footprint.
Which is why many people were shocked in 2019 when the BJP increased its tally in Parliament to a massive 303 seats with a 37.46 per cent vote share.
The party made history by increasing its majority in a second straight landslide election win.
The NDA, meanwhile, got 353 seats.
Yet again it was the Hindi heartland that powered the BJP to a massive win.
The party won 74 seats in Uttar Pradesh, 39 in Bihar and 28 in Madhya Pradesh.
The party also won 77 seats in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Delhi plus another nine in Chhattisgarh and 11 in Jharkhand.
In all, the BJP picked up 238 seats in the Hindi heartland.
The Congress, being led by Rahul Gandhi, came a cropper again.
The grand old party won just 52 seats on its own with its vote share falling under 10 per cent.
The UPA won 91 seats.
Even worse for the Congress was that Rahul lost from the party’s prestigious Amethi constituency to Smriti Irani.
Modi was sworn in for his second term on 30 May, 2019, in front of 8,000 people including South Asian leaders, Bollywood stars and leading political figures.
Rahul , whose Congress party suffered a second straight humiliating defeat, was among the crowd with his mother Sonia, the former Congress leader.
The fallout led to Rahul resigning as Congress chief – seemingly for good – despite the vehement pleas of people in his party.
2024
Modi in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls was seeking his third straight term – to equal the record of India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
Before the polls, the NDA had set itself a lofty goal of 400 seats in the Lok Sabha.
Though three exit polls gave the BJP a chance to achieve its ‘400 paar’ goal, things turned out far different than expected.
The BJP won 240 seats – 32 less than the majority needed to form a government on its own – a far cry from the 303 and 282 seats it had won in 2019 and 2014 respectively.
It is the Hindi heartland that is in the spotlight yet again.
The BJP has suffered crushing losses in three Hindi heartland states including in politically-crucial Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana.
The party got no seats in Tamil Nadu and lost ground in Karnataka.
However, the BJP made inroads into Kerala, winning a seat for the first time in a state where the Congress and the Left are the major political forces, and in Telangana where it won eight seats.
Popular Malayalam actor Suresh Gopi won the Thrissur seat in Kerala to help the lotus bloom.
However, the NDA alliance netted 292 seats with 42.8 per cent vote share.
This after the BJP’s key allies N Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) bagged 16 and 12 seats in Andhra Pradesh and Bihar respectively.
The elections also highlighted the revival of the main Opposition Congress party under Rahul Gandhi, and the unexpected role of the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh under Akhilesh Yadav as a giant slayer.
The Congress, which is is part of the Opposition INDIA alliance, won 99 seats in 2024.
The party ate into the BJP’s share in Rajasthan and Haryana.
The Trinamool Congress, another key ally of the Opposition alliance, won in 29 seats in West Bengal.
The BJP, which had 18 seats in Bengal in the previous the last Lok Sabha election, won in 12 seats.
The INDIA bloc won 234 seats.
Modi vows to work with all states
Preparing to take office for a record-equalling historic third term, Prime Minister Modi pledged to work with all states, regardless of the party in power, to build a developed India. India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru had served three consecutive terms.
In his first speech after the results of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections on Tuesday, Modi laid out his vision for the third term saying it would be a tenure of big decisions and key emphasis would be on uprooting corruption.
This is the first time that Modi, 73, will be dependent on allies to remain in the government since he came into politics.
“The fight against corruption is becoming tougher by the day. Corruption is being shamelessly glorified for political interest. In our third term, NDA will focus a lot on rooting out corruption of all kinds,” Modi said.
Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge termed the poll outcome as the “victory of the people and that of democracy”.
“We had been saying that this battle is between public and Modi… This mandate is against Modi. This is his political and moral defeat. It is a big defeat for a person who sought votes in his own name. He has suffered a moral setback,” Kharge told reporters at the AICC headquarters, flanked by Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi after the good showing by the Congress.
With inputs from agencies
