At the close of polling on the evening of June 1, the last day of the scattered seven-phase elections to the Lok Sabha, the visual and print media was awash with purported exit polls claiming a landslide victory for the ruling party, and with at least 350 seats together with its allies from the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). A prejudiced section of the media responded by ridiculing the rival INDIA alliance and poking fun at psephologists who had, from the initiation of voting, beginning with south India predicted that the ruling alliance faced reversals. Political strategist Prashant Kishor, having bristled in an interview that had questioned his self-proclaimed infallibility, in which he had predicted 300 plus seats for the BJP, dismissed the lot as “fake”. 

The evident doctoring of exit polls was in fact the consummation of a campaign that began with a senior news anchor of a leading media house publishing on his Facebook page “Ab ki baar 400 se par” (This time over 400) The results however, reveal who the fakes are.

Now, as we know, the BJP in 2024 has suffered its worst defeat since the assumption of Narendra Modi’s leadership, and ended the tally well below an absolute majority, leaving the party depending primarily on two allies, which its leadership has in the past repeatedly labelled shifty and unreliable, and one of whom had faced jail under BJP rule.  On the other hand, these very results have been celebrated by ‘liberals’ who have read into them a reversal of the drift towards majoritarianism and the rescue of constitutional governance, in the face of some BJP candidates being rumoured to have actually proclaimed that on their return to power the Constitution would be revised. This, despite denials by the ruling establishment, brought discomfiture at the hustings, besides eroding the BJP’s support base among those of their former adherents whose social standing sprang from the very Constitution that has been the keystone of reservation.

Drawing of battle lines 

But this contention actually saw the drawing of battle lines never perhaps intended but brought on by the irresponsible utterings of leaders from the BJP including PM Modi himself regarding the legal basis of citizenship of millions of his fellow citizens based only on their religious denomination. This certainly rallied the Muslim community across India behind the INDIA alliance. In the Union Territories of Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir, with their Muslim majorities, these battle lines are dramatically demonstrable but are obvious to a discreet observer elsewhere in the country. In a triumph of the democratic option, Kashmiris notorious for their election boycotts in the past streamed out in large numbers to rally behind the local nationalist National Conference and even one proponent of independence (azadi), Engineer Rasheed languishing in prison under the UAPA, their sole purpose being to oust the BJP at the Centre.

The last ten years of BJP rule in the country have exacerbated social tensions. All sections of Indian society need reassurance not for the enjoyment of special privileges, except that which is provided in the Constitution, but in each citizen being assured of freedom from economic, social, or political discrimination on whatever ground. Otherwise, Indian society is faced with fractures which cannot bode well for the lasting unity that the country was born to. This is a challenge for the incoming government. At least two major components of this government, the JD(U) and the TDP, have already declared their commitment to address this. Will the NDA find answers or buckle under the issue given that contradictory emotions run high on the matter?

Times have changed

The results are nevertheless in keeping with the pluralist character of a diverse polity. This is exemplified by the results in Uttar Pradesh. Although no politician myself I had personally campaigned for the son of a former colleague in my home village of Saidanpur in Barabanki district, with a Muslim majority in a reserved constituency. This has been a Samajwadi Party stronghold with the Lok Sabha seat held by the BJP since 2014, but assigned in the INDIA alliance to the INC. The young Congressman Tanuj Punia contesting here won the seat by over 2 lakh (200,000) votes, exceeding even the victory margin of the BJP strongman fighting from the BJP citadel and former PM Vajpayee’s adjoining constituency Lucknow, the popular Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. INDIA ended up with 47 seats to NDA’s 33, although all predictions, even those supportive of INDIA had not made so bold as to give the opposition anything above 40.

Set against this however, we have the sweeping NDA victory in the small but seemingly impregnable bastion of the BJD in Odisha led by India’s longest-serving chief minister, who could hold onto not a single Lok Sabha seat, with 20 going to the BJP and the only remaining one to the Congress. Not only this, in the Vidhan Sabha dominated for years by the Naveen Patnaik-led BJD, the BJP wrested an absolute majority with 78 seats against the BJD’s 51, with INC, the former ruling party in the state and more recently the principal opposition taking only 14. Similarly, the BJP took every seat in Madhya Pradesh’s 29 Lok Sabha constituencies with the Congress losing the lone seat Chhindwara it had held consistently under former chief minister Kamal Nath, contested this time by his son Nakul where, in the recent state elections held there, a victory for the INC had been predicted but never won  

In “Electoral Democracy: An enquiry into the Fairness and Integrity of Elections in India”, a retired group of civil servants researched with the assistance of experts at home, including the IITs, and abroad, broaching the possibility of the electoral process in India being compromised. The nature of elections in Delhi, Odisha and Madhya Pradesh, and even in some parts of Uttar Pradesh make these elections worthy of review.   

In the Lok Sabha elections in 1989, the then ruling Indian National Congress, taking account of its severe losses, having been reduced to 197 seats with almost 40 per cent of the vote when a majority required 265, as against the principal opposition Janata Dal’s 143, looked upon this as a defeat, which it was, as indeed it is for the ruling party today. The outgoing PM Rajiv Gandhi, refused to make a bid for office or to cobble together an alliance. Instead, Rajiv Gandhi addressed the nation on national television shortly after the election, promising "constructive cooperation" to the new government, "With all my strength, I shall continue to serve the people of India," he said. "Elections are about winning and losing, but the nation's work never stops." 

Times have changed

(The writer, a retired civil servant, was the first Chief Information Commissioner of India and former chairperson of the National Commission for Minorities. Views are personal. By special arrangement with The Billion Press)