Many iterations of the verdict in the just concluded 2024 general election exist. One thing is, however, obvious — viz., that there were no clear winners.
The election threw up a split verdict — the National Democratic Alliance, or NDA, 294, and the INDIA bloc crossing the 230 mark, reversing a trend seen during the 2014 and 2019 general elections, when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerged as a clear winner and Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the messiah. Has democracy won? A lot has again been written again about the nature of the verdict: primarily, that democracy had won and right-wing forces (more specifically the BJP) had been defeated. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Indian voter, essentially the rural voter, did prove discerning, no doubt, and gave a reasonable opportunity to the Opposition to alter the trajectory of the past decade, by forming a ‘coalition of the willing’. This could then have been viewed as a clear message against ‘authoritarianism’. Instead, a disunited Opposition failed to take advantage of the situation.
The INDIA bloc which had failed to firm up a coalition prior to the election, failed once again to unite when the time came for ministry formation post the election. In that sense, the Opposition failed the Indian voter. The BJP-led alliance managed a slim victory, though the BJP’s tally, of 240, fell well short of a simple majority.
The party lost 63 seats as compared to its 2019 tally (303 seats), and was compelled.
