NDA Wins Majority

New Delhi: While the BJP's “Ab ki bar 400 paar” remained a distant dream with the saffron camp struggling to cross even 240 Lok Sabha seats, the Congress and the INDIA bloc stunned political pundits by changing the electoral map of India. The BJP, which had a brute majority of 303 Lok Sabha seats in 2019, was leading in 239 seats till the time of going to press, a loss of 64 seats so far. The Congress, which had managed to win 55 Lok Sabha seats in 2019, led in around 100 Lok Sabha constituencies, a gain of 45 seats. So far, the INDIA alliance was clocking 41 per cent of voteshare, showing a massive jump from the UPA's 2019 voteshare of 26.74 per cent. The NDA has managed to retain its voteshare of 45 per cent.

While some of the top INDIA alliance leaders were trying to reach out to TDP supremo N. Chandrababu Naidu and JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar, sources revealed that both these outfits are likely to continue with the NDA for now. As for the Assembly elections, the TDP led by Mr Naidu is all set to form the government in Andhra Pradesh, while in Odisha, the BJP was all set to come to power for the first time, unseating the BJD led by Naveen Patnaik.

Unfazed by the outcome, Prime Minister Narendra Modi went on to claim that the people “have placed their faith in the NDA for the third consecutive time”. For Mr Modi, this was “a historic feat in India's history”.

However, with the numbers in Parliament somewhat evenly stacked, it could present significant challenges for the BJP-led NDA government to push through contentious policies, including “One Nation-One Poll” and the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC).

The results not just energised the Opposition, it also helped Congress leader Rahul Gandhi storm back to the national stage. He won both the Rae Bareli and Wayanad Lok Sabha berths by huge margins. Addressing the media, Mr Gandhi said that the “country has given its message. It does not want Narendra Modi and Amit Shah”. Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge described the outcome as a “mandate against Modi”. West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee demanded Mr Modi’s resignation “accepting moral defeat”. Speaking in Kolkata, Ms Banerjee said: “PM Modi has lost all credibility, he should immediately resign. Modi is now falling at the feet of the TDP and Nitish (Kumar) to form the government.” A visibly upset BJP leader virtually echoed Ms Banerjee's line, saying: “For the last 10 years, we were dictating terms, but now the party will have to be at the mercy of the allies.” A former BJP Rajya Sabha member, speaking at a TV channel, felt that even if the NDA formed government, it "could fall in a few months for lack of clarity”.

While the BJP suffered a setback in the Hindi heartland, it finally managed to make inroads into Kerala by opening its account and routed the Congress in the hill states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. However, the BJP’s bid to consolidate the Hindu votebank with the construction of the Ram temple failed to resonate with the electorates in some parts of the hinterland, particularly in Uttar Pradesh, the epicentre of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. In UP, where the BJP was expecting to win at least 60 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats, the Samajwadi Party led by Akhilesh Yadav virtually rattled the saffron Goliath down by leading in at least 36 seats. The BJP suffered major setbacks in UP with party stalwarts Smriti Irani from Amethi, Maneka Gandhi from Sultanpur and Sanjeev Baliyan from Muzaffarnagar biting the dust. Ms Irani, the BJP's star candidate, lost by over 15 lakh votes to Congress candidate K.L. Sharma. The BJP was also found trailing in Faizabad (Ayodhya) constituency. It was eastern Uttar Pradesh which delivered a huge blow to the BJP. While Rahul Gandhi was leading in Rae Bareli with a margin of nearly 3,80,000 votes, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was leading by a margin of over one lakh votes from Varanasi.

A desert storm hit the BJP hard in Rajasthan, which was trailing in at least nine of the 25 Lok Sabha seats. In 2019, the BJP had swept Rajasthan by winning all 25 Lok Sabha seats. Sources said that factional fights between the BJP state and the national leaders in both UP and Rajasthan resulted in the party’s “dismal” performance in these two states.

It was Maharashtra where the BJP-led “Mahayuti” faced a major reversal. The move to engineer splits within the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena and Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) failed to yield the intended results in the state. While the Maha Vikas Aghadi (INDIA) coalition, consisting of the Congress, Shiv Sena (Thackeray) and NCP (Sharad Pawar) was leading in 29 seats, the BJP-led Maha Yuti (NDA), which included chief minister Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar's NCP, was leading in 18 seats.

The BJP, which was confident of trouncing the Trinamul Congress in West Bengal, was in for a rude shock. The saffron brigade faced a body blow as the party struggled to retain its 2019 tally of 18 Lok Sabha seats. So far, the TMC was leading in 30 seats, the BJP in 12 and Left and Congress alliance in one. The BJP, which swept all 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana in 2019, hit a hurdle with the Congress leading in five seats. The lotus brigade, which had won 12 of the 14 Lok Sabha seats in Jharkhand in 2019, was also in for a jolt in this tribal state. While the BJP was leading in nine seats (loss of three seats), the Congress and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha was leading in five seats (gain of three seats). In Congress-ruled Karnataka, the BJP and its ally Janata Dal (Secular) was leading in 19 seats, while the Congress was ahead in nine seats. The BJP's hopes were also dashed in Tamil Nadu as the DMK and Congress alliance won all 29 Lok Sabha seats. The BJP star attraction, state unit chief Annamalai, failed to fire and win from the Coimbatore Lok Sabha constituency.

The BJP, however, swept through Madhya Pradesh, scoring 29-0, While it won 25 of the 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat, it once again retained its stranglehold in Delhi, by winning all the seven seats. The BJP-led NDA also trounced the INDIA alliance in Assam by recording a comfortable lead in 10 of the 14 Lok Sabha seats. In Odisha, BJP not only snatched the state away from Biju Janata Dal by winning the Assembly elections but decimated the BJD in the Lok Sabha polls by winning 19 of the 21 seats in the state.

It was, however, the stellar performance by the BJP allies, the TDP and JD(U), which kept the NDA afloat and made it possible to cross the simple majority of 272 seats. While the Nitish Kumar-led JD(U) in Bihar won 12 seats, the TDP led by N. Chandrababu Naidu bagged 16 Lok Sabha berths in Andhra Pradesh.

In the Kashmir Valley, the victory of separatist leader and Independent candidate from Baramulla Abul Rashid Sheikh, popularly known as “Engineer”, was being viewed as a “statement” against the abrogation of Article 370. Abdul Rashid of Awami Ittehad Party won against National Conference leader Omar Abdullah by a margin of over one lakh votes. In Punjab, radical preacher and Independent candidate Amritpal Singh was leading by over 50,000 votes against his nearest rival, Congress candidate Kulbir Singh Zira. Amritpal Singh, arrested under the NSA, is lodged in an Assam jail. Khadoor Sahib is known as a “panthic seat”.