NDA on course to form third successive govt, BJP way short of majority

The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on Tuesday seemed on course to form the Union government for the third consecutive time as it won 259 seats and was leading in 24 seats in the 545-member Lok Sabha.

However, this election result showed a slowing down of the BJP juggernaut, witnessed in the last two Lok Sabha elections, as the party led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi fell way short of the magical half-way mark of 272 seats in the lower house of Parliament. It may be mentioned that the number of elected members in the Lok Sabha is 543, and two members are nominated from the Anglo-Indian community.

The saffron party, which had bagged 282 Lok Sabha seats in the 2014 elections and 303 in the 2019 polls by cashing on the ‘Modi charisma’, has so far won 220 seats and was leading in another 20, which is likely to take its tally to around 240 if the current trend holds.

However, it was able to cross the majority mark with the help of allies in the NDA as the bloc seemed likely to collectively bag 280-plus seats.

On the other hand, the INDIA bloc, led by the Congress, has so far won 202 seats and was ahead in another 29 constituencies.

This included 88 seats won by the Congress, which was also occupying the pole position in another 11 seats, and could finish with close to 100 seats. The grand old party displayed a tremendous comeback by nearly doubling its tally against last time’s 52 seats.

A big role in halting BJP’s singular electoral victory run was played by Uttar Pradesh, where the INDIA bloc, comprising Samajwadi Party (SP) and Congress, could finish with a tally of around 43 seats out of 80. While SP has already won 36 seats, it was ahead of its rivals in one more. The Congress has bagged six seats.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, BJP got 62 seats in India's most populated state.

The biggest upset was witnessed in the Gandhi family bastion of Amethi where top BJP leader and Union Minister Smriti Irani was defeated by an ordinary Congress worker Kishori Lal Sharma and that too by a huge margin of 1,67,196 votes.

Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi won from both Amethi's neighbouring constituency Rae Bareli and Kerala's Wayanad by whopping margins of over 3,90,000 and 3,64,000 respectively.

On the other hand, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had little difficulty in retaining Varanasi, but with a much reduced margin of around 1.52 lakh votes. In 2019 he won by more than 4.79 lakh votes.

Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana were among other states which played a key role in preventing the BJP from reaching the half-way mark of 272 seats.

In Maharashtra, after an initial close fight, the INDIA bloc, called Maha Vikas Aghadi in the state, surged ahead and had either won or was in the lead in 30 of the state’s 48 seats. The ruling Mahayuti. Where BJP is a dominant force had to be satisfied with leads/wins in 30 seats. A Congress rebel candidate Vishal Patil, who contested as an independent, won from the Sangli seat with one lakh plus margin.

In the big-ticket seat of Baramati, Sharad Pawar's daughter Supriya Sule was ahead of her sister-in-law Sunetra Pawar by over 1,58,000 votes. Suley contested as a candidate of Sharad Pawar led NCP(SP), while Sunetra was the nominee of NCP led by Sharad's Pawar's nephew Ajit Pawar, who had caused a split in Pawar’s party 11 months back and walked away to join the Eknath Shinde ministry.

In a further setback, the BJP failed to open its account in Punjab, where the Congress finished as the dominant party with seven seats, followed by the state’s ruling Aam Aadmi Party with three seats, while one seat went to the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)and two independents won.

In Rajasthan, where the BJP-led NDA had made a clean sweep of all the 25 seats in the previous LS polls, it faced a strong resistance this time. While the BJP picked up 14 seats, the INDIA bloc took ten (Congress 8, CPI-M 1 and Rashtriya Lok Tantrik Party 1). The remaining seat went to a regional outfit Bharat Adivasi Party.

The Congress also matched the BJP in Haryana winning four seats and leading in one more. The BJP bagged the remaining five seats.

West Bengal was another big disappointment for the BJP, which had high expectations from the eastern state after most of the exit polls put the party ahead of the ruling Trinamool Congress. In the end Trinamool held on to its fort grabbing 29 seats, leaving the BJP far behind (11 wins, one lead). The Congress got one seat, but its leader in the outgoing Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury lost to political greenhorn and retired India cricketer Yusuf Pathan.

However, cheers for the BJP came from Madhya Pradesh, where it cruised to victory on all the 29 seats. Gujarat too gave a bounty of 25 of the 26 seats to the saffron outfit. The Congress could get only one seat.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah, considered the second most powerful man in the government and the BJP, won from Gandhinagar with an astounding margin of over 7.44 lakh votes.