In a major disappointment to "brand Narendra Modi", the BJP aiming for 370 seats on its own and setting for the NDA a target of 'Ab ki baar 400 paar", fell short of majority magic number of 272. It is now at the mercy of Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal (United), N Chandrababu Naidu-led Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and other allies to form the next Government at Centre.
Reacting in the evening to the verdict at the BJP headquarters here, Modi described the NDA's expected majority in the Lok Sabha polls as a historic feat in India's history. He said people have placed their faith in the ruling alliance for a third consecutive term.
In a post on X, he said, "I bow to the 'Janata Janardan' for this affection and assure them that we will continue the good work done in the last decade to keep fulfilling the aspirations of people."
He also lauded the alliance's workers for their hard work and said words will never do justice to their exceptional efforts.
The BJP, which contested more seats this time than in 2019, garnered 36.91 per cent of the total votes polled, a drop of around 0.39 percentage points.
On the other hand, the Congress' vote share increased by 2.22 percentage points to reach 21.68 per cent and it was also reflected in its seat tally. The party is set to win 99 seats.
Though the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) got an absolute majority of 291 seats as against 272 needed to form the Government. In the 2019 general election, the BJP had won 303 seats on its own. The NDA had won 353 seats.
Modi won the Varanasi seat for the third consecutive term by defeating Congress candidate Ajay Rai. The victory margin of Modi this time is 1,52,513, which is less than his victory margins of 2019 and 2014. In 2019, Modi's victory margin was 4,79,505. He had defeated SP's Shalini Yadav that time while Rai was the runner up. BJP's stalwarts — Smriti Irani, Ajay Mishra Teni, Arjun Munda, and Kailash Choudhary, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Maneka Gandhi, Sanjeev Baliyan, K Annamalai and Lallu Singh lost their seats.
Despite all noise around Modi wave in Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Haryana, the BJP applecart got derailed as development planks, making five trillion economy, consecration of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, Abrogation of Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir, making India a potential superpower and nationalism did not work in the Hindi belts where the BJP failed to retain the results of 2019.
The BJP's losses, as expected, are being offset from Odisha, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and to an extent, Telangana.
Notably, the BJP lost the Ayodhya seat to Samajwadi Party (SP) in UP, where Ram Mandir was built after 500 years.
As the BJP failed to reach the majority mark on its own, parleys began on their front with TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu getting calls from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
In Chhattisgarh (10/11), Madhya Pradesh ( 29/29), Delhi ( 7/7), Uttarakhand ( 5/5) and Himachal Pradesh ( 4/4) and Gujarat ( 25/26), the BJP seems to set to either keep its dominance or even better its 2019 performance. It's worse performance this time in UP (32/80), Bihar (12/40), Jharkhand (8/14), Rajasthan (14/25) and Maharashtra (10/48).
In 2019, the BJP had won 176 of the 225 seats in the 10 States of the Hindi belt. The party had won Uttar Pradesh (62 seats) out of 80), Uttarakhand (5/5), Bihar (17/40), Jharkhand (11/14), Chhattisgarh (9/11), Madhya Pradesh (28/29), Delhi (7/7), Haryana (10/10), Himachal Pradesh (3/4) and Rajasthan (24/25).
The BJP was riding high on the victory of three Assembly elections in the recent months in the name of Modi. Since the BJP campaign was all about Modi, his charm and charisma did not work as the entire election campaign evolved around his Modi brand.
Even BJP and his alliance candidates sought votes in Modi's name. There is an acknowledgement even among the BJP leaders about several missteps the party made, from poor ticket selection by picking many candidates with little standing in their constituencies and manufacturing coalitions and alliances by all means in a big State like Maharashtra.
Modi attempted to pivot the poll around the Opposition's alleged Muslim appeasement but his choice of contentious phrases drew its share of critics. It was telling that the BJP's own manifesto aroused little interest while its own leaders kept the attack on the Congress over the Opposition party's manifesto.
The Prime Minister coined the "400 paar" slogan to deflate the Opposition by sending out the signal that the BJP juggernaut was on its way to another grand majority.
The election results show the BJP lost some ground to the Congress in direct contests in the Lok Sabha polls, for the first time in 10 years. It has also ceded ground to SP in UP, and TMC in West Bengal.
Uttar Pradesh proved to be an even bigger shocker for the BJP which singlehandedly powered the BJP to a majority in 2014 and 2019. The 'shehzadas' have taken the town by surprise, as the BJP is all set to receive a grand drubbing.
With a vote share of 41.40 per cent, BJP won 62 seats out of 80 in 2019 but this time it has been reduced to 36 as of now. SP has won 38, six by Congress, two by RLD. One key element that worked for the 'do ladko ki jodi' in UP, is the PDA perspective. Pichchde (backward classes), Dalits and Alpsankhyak (minorities), coined by Yadav.
Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh's son Karan Bhushan Singh managed to retain the Kaiserganj seat with a margin of 1,48,843 votes.
One of the factors that may have worked in favour of the SP was ticket distributions. The SP fielded only five Yadavs - all from the family of party chief Akhilesh Yadav - it gave 27 tickets to non-Yadav OBCs; 11 to upper castes, including four Brahmins, two Thakurs, two Vaishyas, and one Khatri; and four to Muslims, besides 15 Dalit candidates in the SC-reserved constituencies.
The BJP has appeared to have shed a chunk of loyal caste votes, including upper castes besides the extremely backward classes, to the SP-Congress alliance as Yadav combined a rainbow social coalition, while reducing representatives from Yadavs and Muslims, his loyal support base.
Two of the other battleground States - West Bengal and Maharashtra have also not gone the BJP's way. TMC won 29 seats while the BJP managed to win only 12 seats, a loss of six seats this time. The BJP's strategy to create divisions within Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena and Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), as well as to seize their party names and symbols, has not achieved the desired results in Maharashtra.
In 2019, the BJP had won 23 seats in Maharashtra, while the Shiv Sena (undivided) won 18 seats. This time the saffron party won 11 seats, while the Congress retained 12.
Rajasthan is another State where BJP faced a setback. Currently, BJP won 14 seats, down from 24 seats that it won in 2019.
