Indian Polls: How just 0.8pc vote cost Modi 63 seats

The results of the six-week long Indian general election, which came out early this month, has shocked many. Local and international media predicted a runaway victory for incumbent prime minister Narendra Modi, whose Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had risen to dominance across the country on the back of two consecutive terms in power. Narendra Modi's cult of personality and the wave of Hindutva, a cultural-political ideology that promotes Hindu nationalism as the basis of the Indian state, were expected to carry the BJP to a dominant election win for the third consecutive time. But that is not how things turned out.

From an outright majority of 303 members in the 543-seat Lok Sabha, the BJP sank to a victory in 2024 that probably feels like a loss with 240 seats. Modi's party lost outright majority but are still by far the most successful political party in India. From 37.36 percent of the vote share in 2019, they have slid down to 36.56 percent in 2024. While Narendra Modi has already embarked on a third stint as the country's prime minister, his aura of invincibility has certainly taken a hit.

According to analysis in various Indian media outlets, this election was less about Modi and more about the local issues affecting everyday Indians, at least in the states where the BJP suffered its biggest losses.

For example, in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state where the electoral contest over 80 seats is vital, the BJP possibly made their costliest blunder. From a position of dominance with 61 out of 80 seats in the previous election, the BJP only won 33 seats this time around. Even in the Faizabad constituency within UP, the place that is home to the Ram Mandir, the BJP lost to a candidate from the Samajwadi Party. Building the temple on the ground where the historical Babri Masjid once stood was arguably one of the BJP's biggest political successes of the last three decades. One of the reasons behind the loss, according to The Hindu, was the BJP's failure to "sense the simmering anger among the residents, whose houses were completely or partly demolished for the Ram Path, a 20-metre wide, 13-kilometre stretch leading to the newly constructed temple".

These are the sentiments that the Samajwadi Party and its leader, Akhilesh Yadav, took advantage of all across UP, to take back the state from BJP with 37 seats. In an article in the Indian Express, this success was attributed to "Akhilesh [Yadav] single handedly created an anti-BJP front of smaller OBC (other backward castes) and Dalit parties, and the Babasaheb Vahini to attract Dalit votes. Positioning himself as the leader of the "pichhda" (the left behind), he changed the election discourse to a battle between Hindutva and social justice."

The other states where the BJP lost a significant number of seats were Maharashtra, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Karnataka, and Haryana.

In Maharashtra, much like UP, local issues, policy differences, and splits between BJP allies over political differences became the dominant factor over Narendra Modi's popularity of the BJP's overarching vision. A Maratha quota that was legislated earlier this year fomented anger among the voter base, while BJP's talk of winning an overwhelming majority and changing the constitution struck fear among the Dalit community, according to the Indian Express. In this state, the BJP went from 23 seats in 2019 to just nine seats in 2024. The Indian National Congress (INC) was the biggest winner here, winning 13 seats in the state this year, from just one in 2019.

The ten seats that the BJP lost in Rajasthan were attributed, by India Today, to internal party conflicts due to which popular incumbents were replaced with new faces for electoral tickets. At the same time, failure to maintain strong engagement with the Gujjar community in the state saw BJP lose their seats, once again, to INC.

Same tunes held strong for BJP's loss of six seats in West Bengal, where it made historical gains in only the previous election. The Economic Times reported that the BJP was "trapped by narrative, leadership crisis and minority consolidation", once again indicating a failure to engage with local communities and local issues. In this state especially, the opposition Trinamool Congress and its leader Mamata Banerjee rallied support over the narrative that the BJP's central government was withholding funds for the people of the state.

The marginal loss in vote share for BJP across the whole country indicates only a slight waning of the popularity of Narendra Modi. However, the fact that the BJP lost so many seats across a variety of states points to the fact that in India, elections are rarely about one person. Every state and its people have their own issues, own concerns, and their own leaders too.

The BJP's reliance on "Modi ki guarantee" to woo voters failed, because voters were possibly not looking for Modi's guarantee. What they needed was assurance that their representative would be present among them, taking their problems seriously, and prioritising the wellbeing of the people.