The winner was already known, designated, knighted. Prime Minister Narendra Modi would win a large majority with his Hindu right-wing party, the BJP. On Saturday, polls predicted 380 to 400 seats for the BJP and its allies in the NDA coalition, synonymous with a two-thirds majority. Modi was confident. In an article published in the press the day before the results, he urged his fellow citizens to “dreaming new dreams”, charting its roadmap for the future. “We must lay the foundations of a developed India for the next twenty-five years. […] Our efforts will take India to new heights. ” He had set a goal for his activists: to win 370 seats out of 543.
The head of government should actually be able to work to realize these ambitions. Tuesday afternoon, the NDA coalition was credited with 290 to 295 deputies. Modi will win, barring any drama, a third five-year term. The performance is unprecedented since the re-election of Jawaharlal Nehru in the 1962 legislative elections. But it is not the victory we had hoped for…
A result down sharply compared to 2019
With some 239 seats according to provisional results, around sixty fewer than in 2019, the BJP is very far from the threshold set by Modi. He lost around twenty constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, the state in the country which sends the most deputies to the lower house (80). In its strongholds of Maharashtra, Haryana and Rajasthan, the BJP lost around twenty seats. The Hindu right also wanted to expand where it has little influence. West Bengal, with its 42 deputies, was a priority target: it only won 12 seats there, six fewer than in the last legislative elections.
Modi still limited the damage by winning 30 constituencies in four states in the South and East. “The BJP has always had its electoral base in the north and west. It has long aspired to become a national party. This breakthrough shows that he has achieved his goal”, points out Kunhi Krishnan Kailash, professor of political science at the University of Hyderabad.
The Rahul Gandhi surprise
With more than 230 parliamentarians, the INDIA alliance made up of Rahul Gandhi’s Congress party and several regional groups is the big surprise of these legislative elections. The Congress won around a hundred constituencies, twice as many as five years ago.
The verdict of the 642 million voters is a personal setback for the Prime Minister. The BJP’s campaign focused on his figure with slogans such as “For once again, a Modi government” and “Modi guarantees”, these social benefits in favor of the working classes. The strong man of the Hindu right got involved in the campaign like a madman, organizing 206 meetings and parades in 75 days, almost twice as many as his opponent Rahul Gandhi.
“The campaign was a referendum for or against Modi”, observes Adnan Farooqui, professor of political science at Jamia Millia Islamia University in New Delhi. His party had a campaign budget estimated in billions of euros, much higher than its competitors. The BJP had taken advantage of its control over the administrative apparatus to take personal data from voters in order to target the plowing of constituencies, violating the principle of fairness of a democratic election.
The scarecrow of the Muslim threat did not work
Narendra Modi had also played on the fears of his electorate. He had accused the Congress party of wanting a new partition of the country, after that of 1947, by favoring Muslims. He assured that the Congress would take the assets of Hindus, the majority community, and give them to Muslims. In vain.
Asaduddin Owaisi is trying to create a major Muslim party while persecution against this “minority” – which numbers 200 million people in India – is intensifying.
Several factors explain this failure. Narendra Modi seems to have been the victim of abstention, an increase of two points compared to 2019. Few Indians doubted his victory and part of his electorate, judging the election won in advance, perhaps did not not moved. The heatwave which is hitting the country may have reinforced this apathy.
Then, the economy does not create enough jobs while 10 to 12 million young people reach working age each year. Worse, around 90% of positions are precarious and without social protection. However, the BJP lost seats in states where this social crisis resonates: Uttar Pradesh above all, but also some of its northern strongholds such as Haryana. The anxiety of young people for their future has crystallized, among other things, against the reform of recruitment in the army which, since 2022, has only kept a quarter of recruits after four years of service. “We must wait for the figures on the vote of young people and the working classes to determine to what extent the employment problem worked against the BJP”, adds Adnan Farooqui.
Despite a growth rate of 6% among the highest in the world, India is not creating enough jobs. Its young people dream of elsewhere. And the government lets them go.
Inequalities create frustration
Persistent unemployment, despite growth of more than 7% per year, illustrates the inequalities generated by the economic policies of the Hindu right. “Over the past decade, the Modi government has invested heavily in modernizing transport infrastructure. His policies benefited the upper middle classes, cities and the service sector. The manufacturing industry, the countryside and agriculture hardly benefited, which could fuel discontent”, explains Kunhi Krishnan Kailash.
Finally, the Congress and its allies may have taken over the vote of the lower castes and untouchables from the Hindu right. Rahul Gandhi reiterated that the BJP will change the Constitution to remove affirmative action in their favor if it gets a two-thirds majority. The decline in scholarships granted to untouchables and the increase in precarious jobs in public companies, which must give 49.5% of positions to low castes and untouchables, worry this electorate. The Congress party has pledged to protect them by vowing to expand affirmative action and double the budget for student grants. “The first results seem to indicate that this category of the population has turned away from the BJP”, notes Adnan Farooqui.
The head of the Indian government wants to rely on the West to accelerate his country’s economic takeoff. Washington, which wants to isolate Moscow from its Indian ally, ignores the human rights violations perpetrated by the Hindu right.
The setback suffered by Modi highlights the hot issues of the next government. Social assistance was one of the central themes of the campaign while the BJP government prides itself on having made India the most dynamic economy in the world. Tuesday’s verdict shows that part of the population is demanding something else: stable jobs, economic growth better distributed between cities and the countryside, between the upper classes and the working classes.
