oppn parties 2024 Elections: BJPs Wings Clipped

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  • PM Modi says Congress is bent on dividing Hindu society for electoral gains and is trying to bulid a Muslim vote bank by keeping the minority in fear
  • Election Commission says Congress demands on Haryana are 'unprecedented' and it is rejecting the will of the people
  • INDIA bloc allies slam Congress, say it does not know how to win even sure-shot elections after its loss in Haryana. AAP dumps it in Delhi and will go solo in the nsuing elections
  • Rahul Gandhi says Haryana loss was 'unexpected' and the party is analysing the results
  • PWD takes over the 6, Flagstaff Road bungalow in Delhi and removes Delhi CM Atishi's belongings for trespassing. It argued that the house was not Delhi CMs permanent residence and once Kejriwal vacated it, a fresh application for allotting it to Atishi needed to be made
  • Centre gives nod to Rs 68000cr mega defence deals including building 2 nuclear submarines and buying 31 Predator drones
  • US government considers asking a federal court to direct Google to sell some of its businesses which will effectively break up the company
  • Finance minister Nirmala Sithraman said that the carbon tax proposed by the EU is unilateral and arbitrary
  • The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the RBI held rates for the 10th consecutive cycle but changed its stance from 'withdrawal of accommodation' to neutral, indicating that all things reamining the same, it might consider lowering key rates in the next review
  • Stocks turn red again on Wednesday: Sensex loses 167 points to 81467 and Nifty 31 points to 24981
  • Asian TT: Despite losing to Japan 1-3 in the semis, the Indian women's team defied rankings and won a historic bronze medal
  • 2nd T20: India score 221/9 powered by a scintillating 74 (34 balls) by Nitish Reddy and a blistering 53 (29balls) by Rinku Singh
  • 2nd T20 versus Bangladesh: Nitish Reddy and Rinku Singh shine with the bat as India thrashes the visitors by 86 runs to win the match and seal the series 2-0 with one match to go
  • Women's T20 World Cup: India thrash Sri Lanka by 82 runs, improve their net run rate considerably to jump to the second position on the group table and give themselves a realistic chance of making the semis
  • EC slams Congress for raising doubts about Haryana results
Ratan Tata passes away at 86. To be cremated with state honours. Calling him a "visionary business leader", PM Modi said he was "extremely pained by his passing away"
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2024 Elections: BJPs Wings Clipped

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2024-06-05 02:25:40

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.

The 2024 general and assembly elections have been a mix of pro and anti-incumbency. While in Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, the voters brought back the incumbent governments, in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, they showed them the door. Chandrababu Naidu made a strong comeback in Andhra and Jagan Reddy was left licking his wounds. In Odisha, strongman Naveen Patnaik failed this time and yielded space to the BJP which will form the next government. On the national stage, Prime Minister Modi's BJP bore the brunt of anti-incumbency and just about managed to stave off defeat for its alliance. From 303 seats in 2019, the BJP slid to just 240 this time. This is nothing short of defeat for the party and Modi himself.

The stakes were high. Modi had his guarantees and the BJP sought votes by portraying the good work it had done and the successful delivery of its welfare schemes. Modi and the BJP sought to make fun of the opposition INDIA alliance by calling it "opportunistic" and the Prime Minister disgustingly said that they will even perform mujra to get votes. But it seems that in the last 20 days or so of the elections, the BJP realized that the wind was not in its favour and the talk of 400 paar was all but forgotten, although bhakts carried it on in WhatsApp groups.

The biggest shock for the BJP has come from UP. As the SP-BSP alliance failed miserably in 2019, the BJP made the mistake of taking the SP-Congress alliance lightly. But there is a huge difference. Since SP and BSP are both regional parties aiming for votes from similar castes and classes, the animosity resulted in votes not getting transferred from one to another. No such animosity existed between the Congress and the SP and the biggest example of successful vote transfer was in Varanasi where the SP did not field any candidate and supported Congress’ Ajai Rai. In the process, Rai was able to increase his vote percentage from about 17% in 2019 to over 40% this time and substantially reduced the margin of victory of Prime Minister Modi.

Now, the BJP will have to form a truly coalition government. In 2014 and 2019, it had a simple majority on its own and the government was never in danger of falling if allies deserted. This time, it will be pushed hard by ambitious, and unreliable allies, and will have to accommodate too many of them. It will have to follow the coalition dharma. It will be interesting to watch how the BJP, given to ride roughshod over the opposition, manages the allies if they raise their voice against its policies. 

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