Institutions, including political outfits, always stay taller than individuals who come and go. Institutions stay. Of course, individuals contribute immensely to building institutions, but they seldom become indispensable.

“The party that looked “unbeatable” till early this year, met its Waterloo in its own backyard of the Hindi heartland, including Uttar Pradesh which sends 80 of 545 Lok Sabha members. Known for its political acumen, some call this most populus state “Ultapulta Pradesh”,   it had earlier shown the longest ruling Congress door. After giving the Bharatiya Janata Party enough time in office, the State has now put its confidence in the Samajwadi Party giving it a record 37 seats, a performance that may have even surprised its leadership.”

Politics is a game of glorious uncertainties. India, the biggest and most vibrant democracy,  has come a long way after it wriggled out of the regimen of mandatory alliances to a single-party majority rule in 2014. And after 10 years, coalitions have again become a political necessity. Though then the Bhartiya Janata Party had broken the hoodoo of coalitions at the center, it now desperately needs its alliance partners in its endeavor to earn the right to govern the biggest democracy in the world for its third term.

More than 642 million people voted to give a fractured verdict while constituting the 18th Lok Sabha with no single party anywhere near the majority mark. In 2014, the BJP came out as the single largest party by winning the majority verdict. Though it stayed on with its alliance part,, including the oldest regional party, Shiromani Akali Dal,  for almost two terms, it parted company with some of its allies before testing deep troubled waters of the voter’s pool this year. Overconfident of its prowess of swimming to safety, it almost drowned itself in the battle of the ballot nearly allowing its sworn opponents and traditional rivals to swim to the podium.

Elated at its earlier success starting in 2014, BJP went on improving its performance as it took its individual tally from 282 in 2014 to 303 in 2019 before setting for itself a gigantic task of 350 seats in the lower House of Parliament in the 2024 contest. The voters, however, did not think the way the party supremo and two-term Prime Minister Narendra Modi thinks. They sent a message loud and clear saying “We decide what we want”.

The party that looked “unbeatable” till early this year, met its Waterloo in its own backyard of the Hindi heartland, including Uttar Pradesh which sends 80 of 545 Lok Sabha members. Known for its political acumen, some call this most populus state “Ultapulta Pradesh”,   it had earlier shown the longest ruling Congress door. After giving the Bharatiya Janata Party enough time in office, the State has now put its confidence in the Samajwadi Party giving it a record 37 seats, a performance that may have even surprised its leadership.

Institutions, including political outfits, always stay taller than individuals who come and go. Institutions stay. Of course, individuals contribute immensely to building institutions, but they seldom become indispensable.

The poll results will now obviously force Narendra Modi to rely on allies to form the government after a bitter and divisive election that was projected as a referendum on his popularity. It also now dims light on the coterie that had the country’s Home Minister and former party President as the confidant of the Prime Minister. The element of surprise is now with the I.N.D.I. Alliance provided  browbeats NDA in the battle of “horse trading”, a game that Narendra Modi and his coterie had set in motion just before the start of the 2024 battle of the ballot.

Interestingly, the BJP candidates, including those who won over from other parties, including Congress,  contested in the name of Modi,  hoping not only for a landslide but also the accomplish the slogan of their leader “iss baar 400 ke paar”  saw success eluding them. They could win-win or were ahead only in 240 seats to emerge as the single largest party, a far cry from the 303 it had won last time in the 543-member Lok Sabha to mark the return of coalition politics.

BJP’s key allies N. Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP and Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) had every reason to be pleased with the performance of their respective candidates as they won 16 and 12 seats in Andhra Pradesh and Bihar, respectively. With the support of its other allies, the BJP-led NDA  has been forced to a tight-rope walking on its course to reach the 272 majority mark. The TDP also swept the Assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh dislodging Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSRCP.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge termed the poll outcome as the “victory of the people and that of democracy.”

“We had been saying that this battle is between the public and Modi…This mandate is against Modi. This is his political and moral defeat. It is a big defeat for a person who sought votes in his name. He has suffered a moral setback,” Kharge told reporters at the AICC headquarters flanked by Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi after the good showing by the Congress.

On the other hand, Narendra Modi with his 52-inch chest, has been on track to equal Jawaharlal Nehru’s record as the PM for a third consecutive term. His accomplishment is, however, subject to acceptance by allies to be in the government.

In a post on X, Modi 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 retained the Varanasi seat but with a reduced victory margin of nearly 1.53 lakh votes in Varanasi. In 2019, the margin was 4,79,505.

It was not Modi alone. Others, including the Aam Aadmi Party, too, would love to put behind this debacle as quickly as it can. As a ruling party in Delhi, it drew a blank while in Punjab against its projected claim of 13-0, it ended with just three seats as four of its five Cabinet Ministers fell on the way to their run for Lok Sabha seats.

And Punjab did the trick. BJP drew a blank from this border State even after it had won over three sitting MPs from other parties in its list of contestants. Two Independents – Amritpal Singh (Khadoor Sahib) and Sarabjeet Singh Khalsa (Faridkot)  – with their splendid triumphs had a message for the rest of the world “Do not take us for granted, we are different.”

India Votes

Party                         2014                            2019                       2024

BJP                              282                                 303                         240

Congress                     44                                    52                           99

Trinamool Congress  34                                 22                            22

Samajwadi Party       5                                    5                              37

TDP                          16                                     3                              16

YSR                           9                                     22                           4

DMK                          *                                    24                           22

SAD                          4                                      2                               1

(The author is a senior journalist. He can be reached at prabhjot416@gmail.com)