Oppn highs: Cong rise, UP rally, Bengal sweep
The outcome of the 2024 polls seemed a foregone conclusion, so much so that Modi set targets of 370 for the BJP and 400 for the NDA, numbers unheard of since the heyday of Congress domination
As India’s general elections approached in February, the Opposition’s multi-party coalition appeared to be in the doldrums. The Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) was stung, first by the desertion of Nitish Kumar in Bihar and then by Jayant Chaudhary in Uttar Pradesh. In West Bengal, a frustrated Mamata Banerjee had just ended seat-sharing talks and negotiations were dragging on endlessly in Maharashtra.
In contrast, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appeared to be going from strength to strength, capitalising on the inauguration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s foreign policy triumphs, and the party’s domination of the Hindi heartland that holds the key to power in Delhi.
The outcome of the 2024 polls seemed a foregone conclusion, so much so that Modi set targets of 370 for the BJP and 400 for the NDA, numbers unheard of since the heyday of Congress domination.
But when the EVMs were tallied on Tuesday, the INDIA bloc delivered a jolt to the NDA by posting strong performances in the heartland. It was buoyed by superlative results in India’s three largest provinces – Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal – and trouncing the NDA in vast swathes of southern India, including a sweep in Tamil Nadu. Key to this unexpectedly robust showing was the revival of the Congress, which ran neck-and-neck with the BJP in Haryana and Rajasthan, two regions the BJP blanked out the Opposition in 2019. In effect, this meant that the INDIA tally went up by nearly 100 seats from its poor showing five years ago.
“The Congress and the INDIA bloc fought the elections positively, the government machinery tried to create hurdles for us, our accounts were frozen, they ran cases against our leaders. But, still, we continued to raise the issue of farmers, labourers, inflation, unemployment and misuse of central agencies. People in huge numbers joined us,” said Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge.
Central to this display was the INDIA bloc’s success in converting this election into a classic, old style seat-by-seat election where caste alignments, local discontent, employment distress and pull of regional satraps take centre stage. Nationally, INDIA reaped rich dividends by focussing on the fear of constitution change, simmering anger about unemployment among young people, proffering an alternative welfare net to compete with the BJP’s expansive labharthi (beneficiary) politics.
The revival of the Congress in the Hindi heartland was at the heart of this story.
In 2014 and 2019, the Congress had emerged as the main weakness in the Opposition’s arsenal as it struggled to win head-to-head contests with the BJP and open its account in the heartland. But in 2024, its strike rate in these 180-odd seats rose from 12.2% and 7.9% in 2014 and 2019 respectively, to 28.8%. This was visible in states such as Rajasthan, where INDIA won 10 compared to the BJP’s 14, and Haryana, where the Congress and the BJP split the 10 seats on offer. In 2019, the BJP won every single seat in these two states.
Moreover, the INDIA bloc nearly doubled its tally in UP, Maharashtra and Bengal, which together send 170 out of 543 Lok Sabha seats.
In Uttar Pradesh, India’s most-populous state, the SP-Congress alliance stunned the NDA by posting its best results in 15 years. SP chief Akhilesh Yadav focussed on expanding the caste base of his party beyond its traditional Yadav and Muslim communities as he nominated a large chunk of leaders from smaller groups – the SP gave only half a dozen tickets to Yadav candidates and enhanced representation of both smaller OBC groups and Dalit sub groups that had leaned towards the BJP in 2019. This helped the party counter the impression that it was limited to Muslims and Yadavs as it smashed through the BJP citadel in the old Mandal playground of eastern UP and picked up critical seats in central and western regions.
The party emerged as the single-largest party in UP with 37 seats, ahead of the BJP’s 33. The Congress won another six, including the Gandhi family boroughs of Amethi and Rae Bareli.
In Maharashtra, which saw two regional powerhouses split vertically in the past three years, the elections were uniquely complex with six major parties in the fray. Since no polls were conducted since the 2019 assembly elections, 2024 was also a referendum on which faction of the Shiv Sena or the Nationalist Congress Party would inherit the legacy of the parent.
The results showed that the people decisively backed Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar over their intra-party rivals. Out of 12 seats where the two Sena factions were pitted against each other, Thackeray won eight and Shinde won four. Sharad Pawar won both seats where his faction faced Ajit Pawar, including the prestige battle of pocket borough Baramati, where his daughter Supriya Sule defeated Ajit Pawar’s wife Sunetra Pawar.
The Congress, too, posted superlative results, winning back its old bastion of Vidarbha on the back of discontent among cultivators and anger in the hinterland over incomes. Especially in seats such as Nanded, where senior leader Ashok Chavan switched to the BJP ahead of the polls, the victory will give heart to a party that ruled Maharashtra in coalition with the NCP for 15 years. The Congress emerged as the single-largest party in the state with 13 seats. INDIA won 29 out of the 48 seats, compared to the NDA’s 18.
“The day our INDIA alliance was formed, we had decided that we wanted to end the dictatorship in the country and save the Constitution…All patriots and all people who are harassed by them (BJP) will come with us. Chandrababu has also been harassed by the BJP govt...” Thackeray said, referring to Chandrababu Naidu of the Telugu Desam Party, an ally of the BJP whose numbers are key to the NDA’s majority.
And in West Bengal, where a fierce campaign unfolded with the BJP making a huge push to maximise seat count in a state where it has slowly but surely built a base, chief minister Mamata Banerjee held her own. Despite being hamstrung by two adverse high court orders – one that cancelled the appointment of 26,000 teachers and another cancelling OBC certificates awarded to 77 Muslim groups – Banerjee crafted a campaign that focussed on her unique connect with the state’s electorate, especially rural women and her expansive welfare net, including direct cash transfer schemes such as Lokhhir Bhandar.
The TMC not only defended its bastion of south Bengal but also damaged the BJP in the western regions of Jangalmahal and north Bengal. The BJP lost Coochbehar, held by Union minister of state Nisith Pramanik, and Bankura, held by Union minister of state Subhas Sarkar. Banerjee’s charisma and local pitch helped her replicate her 2021 assembly triumph and better her 2019 showing with 29 seats, compared to the BJP’s 12.