India’s message
LOUD and clear is the message conveyed by India’s voters to Prime Minister Narendra Modi — never take us for granted. The BJP-led NDA has managed to get the better of the INDIA bloc in the 2024 General Election, but its victory was anything but emphatic. The landslide predicted by the exit polls failed to materialise; the ruling alliance’s ‘abki baar 400 paar’ slogan remained just that — a slogan. The BJP’s all-out attempts to bulldoze the Opposition into submission largely came a cropper as the Congress-spearheaded bloc put up a spirited fight. And at the end of the day, PM Modi didn’t look all that mighty — for a change, he would have to rely heavily on regional satraps like Nitish Kumar and N Chandrababu Naidu to keep his government intact.
The BJP, in its heart of hearts, knew that a few influential allies would come in handy when the going got tough. No wonder Bihar CM Nitish’s Janata Dal (United) returned to the NDA fold in January, while the Naidu-led Telugu Desam Party forged a tie-up with the BJP in March. The BJP has done well to upset Biju Janata Dal’s applecart in Odisha and made major inroads in the South, but the reversals in Uttar Pradesh have left it shell-shocked. The inauguration of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya was projected by the BJP as the high point of the PM’s second term, but even this momentous event did not work wonders for the saffron party in UP, easily India’s most important state in political and electoral terms. The Samajwadi Party-Congress combine turned the tables on the BJP with a remarkable performance. The beleaguered grand old party — which was in danger of losing its pre-eminence within INDIA — bounced back with a vengeance to nearly double its 2019 nationwide tally.
The good news for Indian democracy is that the country is in no danger of becoming Opposition-mukt. The BJP is likely to be kept on its toes not only by its allies but also Congress and Co. Socio-economic issues such as unemployment, inflation and growing inequality, which played a significant role in influencing voters’ choices, will have to be addressed on priority by the new government.
