Opinion | Elections 2024: Looking Back, Looking Ahead

The real story of the 2024 general election is not that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)/National Democratic Alliance (NDA) will get the four out of 10 votes cast it needs to be re-elected with a clear margin. It will. The real story is how the BJP almost snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. And the pressing question beyond June 4 is: will Narendra Modi be willing to adopt a more consensual and federal approach to tackle the many deep social and economic fault lines revealed in the course of the long-drawn elections? 

When the protagonists lined up two months ago, there was no doubt about the outcome. The BJP's down-to-the-booth-level election machinery was all primed to maximise its vote. Its templated use of sam, dam, dand, bhed (SDDB) had created new NDA allies in the key swing states of Bihar and Maharashtra, and in the tempestuous farmer agitation afflicted west Uttar Pradesh. Allied with Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra, it was poised to capture the anti-incumbency vote against Jagan Reddy, who had overdone welfarism and shortchanged development.

How The Contest Evolved

The by then ten-month-old opposition INDIA alliance was still to take baby steps towards getting election-ready. The Congress was tottering from the rout in the December assembly elections, which it fought alone to improve its tactical nous in the national poll seat distribution. Two opposition chief ministers were in jail, most crucially Arvind Kejriwal, arguably the closest Modi clone in populism and political style and substance. And the Congress's finances were hobbled.

Read | Opinion: How Congress And BJP's Campaigns Evolved

Meanwhile, of course, the perennials were in place for the BJP. Prime Minister Modi's personal popularity continued to be stratospheric. Nationalism had become co-terminus with Hinduism. The Ram Mandir "Pran Pratishtha" with Modi as virtually the high priest was fresh in memory. The perception had taken root that Modi had enhanced India's prestige in the world. New welfarism deliverables had undoubtedly improved the quality of life of all recipients, transcending communities. Digital payments had become so ubiquitous even the lowliest tradesman found commerce a dream. Vast improvements in physical infrastructure had solidified support among the middle classes.

An Unexpectedly Tough Battle

And then the Election Commission obliged with a 44-day, seven-phase election schedule that would enable the far better-resourced BJP to optimise the showcasing of its one-point election plank: Modi and his guarantees. A confident Modi, secure in the strongholds of the North and the West, was busy storming the South and declaring in Parliament "Abki Baar 400 par" anticipating a 10% increase in its vote.

The BJP's unexpectedly hard-fought win will have two main reasons: Modi's superior tactical nous after the bulge had sounded and the Opposition's failure to spot and capitalise on the full entrails of the widespread but simmering anti-incumbency. 

Post the tepid first phase, Modi realised that if he was to get the 50% of the Hindu vote, he needs to get 4/10 votes nationally (Hindus being 80% of the population), Hindutva, and relentless charges of appeasement of the Muslims by the Congress had to be the main refrain. This despite more than one credible poll showing that the percentage of people who believed that India belonged to more than one religion was not much less than Modi's popularity rating.

Just as electorally important for Modi to don the Hindu Samrat crown was to seal the loyalty of the millions of Sangh Parivar cadres, chiefly the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bajrang Dal. Modi's popularity among these cadres far outstrips that among the collectivist Nagpur leadership. But the RSS cadres' resolve was wavering because the BJP's primacy to the winnability criterion meant widely that they were now canvassing for somebody they had reviled till the other day.

A Shaky Opposition, Initially

The other reason why the BJP will scrape through is, of course, Opposition ineptitude and lack of a counter-narrative. While INDIA and ally leaders - Mamata, Sidharamiah et al - have now worked out their own versions of welfarism, wooing the poor and especially the women with the same effective Direct Benefit Transfers (DBTs) as the BJP, they have yet to acquire the development credentials of Modi. Revenue buoyancy has enabled the Modi government to sharply step up capital expenditure. With his demonstrable commitment to using technology in governance, Modi still has the edge when it comes to representing the aspirational in the average Indian, most so among the young. Then there is the widespread sentiment that "Sarkar toh Modi hi banayega", if nothing then through its ruthless use of SDDB.

Read | Opinion: Why A 2004-Like Scenario Is Unlikely

Note how the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has emerged as the spoiler in Uttar Pradesh. It is contesting all 80 seats, but unlike in 2019, none of its candidates is expected to win. With 14 Muslim candidates, it is the party with the most candidates from the community. Upshot? Behenji can be safely expected to split the non-BJP votes in enough contentious constituencies for the BJP to retain its 62/80 score of 2019, despite the last-minute spurt in popular support for the main Opposition Congress-Samajwadi Party (SP) alliance. Akhilesh Yadav's outreach beyond his Yadav-Muslim support base, where only nine tickets were given to MY (Muslims-Yadav) candidates and many more to other OBCs, will go down as another instance of too little too late.

The Pressure On BJP To React

And yet, these seven weeks have also rebounded on the BJP because it gave space for all the deep fault lines and failures in India's polity the time and scope to manifest themselves through the concentrated political mobilisation that elections engender. And for all its faults, the Opposition, led by the Congress or just buoyed by spontaneous local dissatisfaction, has done what seemed impossible some time ago: set the terms of the public discourse forcing the BJP to react.

Nowhere was this more successful than in creating the fear among the Dalits that the BJP war cry of "400" par was intended to curb reservations. This threatened the BJP's social engineering among Dalits where its sustained work of coopting Dalits into the Hindu fold has electorally focused on successfully wooing the non-dominant and more populous Dalit sub-castes, pitting them against the BSP's base of Jatavs and the Republican Party of India's (RPI) Mahars. The Congress's promise to scrap the Agnipath scheme and institute a massive one-year apprentice scheme tapped effectively into the desperation among youth for jobs, most so among the educated lot. For a brief moment, there was a flash of the 2004 "class" election, BJP's biggest nightmare. However, these ripples came too late to whip up the widespread despair and disillusionment into anger.

What BJP Now Needs To Focus On

Modi's 10 years have been rightly applauded for broadly good macro management of the economy and a distinct reduction in poverty, thanks to "new welfarism" and free food for 800 million people. But the needle has barely moved on several key ground realities, which continue to deeply disappoint India's increasingly aware and aspirational society, and it's anybody's guess when these frustrations will erupt into street agitations. Arguably, the readiest powder keg is farmer unrest. The government refuses to recognise that farmers believe, with good reason, that the MSP is their only bulwark against their occupational hazards and lack of parity in market power.

Quality school education and universal healthcare are chimaeras, even though proven models for both exist in states; the now four-year-old New Education Policy rots on the shelf. The extent of child malnutrition and stunting is a shame for a lower-middle-income country. Thirty years after the passage of Articles 71 and 72, the empowerment of local self-governing institutions is a mirage. Widespread digitalisation notwithstanding, pervasive corruption for the average Indian is no less an albatross. The bureaucracy still rules and not serves, early gains of the Karmayogi Mission notwithstanding.

Despite the growing formalisation of the economy, youth are mostly stuck in jobs with sustenance wages and little dignity and purpose. The appalling lack of progress in skilling continues to threaten to turn the demographic dividend into a demographic disaster. The economy's potential continues to be hobbled by low consumer demand growth because of the 'K' nature of economic recovery, where inequality has catapulted. A stunted investment-to-GDP ratio is propped up only by hugely stepped-up government capital spending, while private sector capital investment awaits a revival of widespread consumer demand.

Taking Everyone Along

A significant change in any one or more of these vectors in the last 10 years would have changed the quality of life of a sufficiently large number of Indians for Modi to get his "400 paar". Ready, proven solutions to many of these structural problems exist with this government, in other than the "double engine" states and among experts with no known political affiliations. Economist Kartik Muralidharan's opus Accelerating India's Development: A State-Led Roadmap for Effective Governance has ready solutions for a dramatic improvement in state capacity, a pre-requisite for realising the full potential of India's economy.

The 2026 delimitation, arguably the biggest national iceberg ahead, cannot be a take-it-or-leave-it exercise. Modi is known to be a good listener, who gives extended time for solutions to problems he is interested in. Elections over, the Prime Minister needs to focus on taking everyone along.

(Ajay Kumar is a senior journalist. He is former Managing Editor, Business Standard and former Executive Editor, The Economic Times.)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author