New Delhi: While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has fallen short of a majority in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, winning 240 seats, and having to rely on its allies to form the government, prime minister designate Narendra Modi has said that “neither have we lost now or before”.
Modi’s statement came in his address to leaders of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) at the central hall of the old parliament building on Friday (June 7).
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
At the meeting Modi was unanimously elected as the leader of NDA, leader of the BJP in the Lok Sabha, and the leader of the BJP parliamentary party board. Later on Friday, Modi met President Draupadi Murmu to stake claim to form the government and was made prime minister designate. The oath taking ceremony of the new government will take place on June 9.
“You have seen the last two days where it was said that we have lost. They had to say this to keep the morale of their workers high. It is necessary for them to create such fictitious things. This is the strongest alliance government in history according to the figures. It was attempted to hide this victory behind defeat. But people of the country know that we had never lost before and neither have we lost now,” said Modi, in his speech.
Crucial to the formation of the new government are the Janata Dal (United) led by Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) led by Chandrababu Naidu who hold the key, as was evidenced in their seating position right next to Modi at the front table during the NDA parliamentary party meeting. While the BJP tailored its campaign around Modi alone, including naming its election manifesto as Modi ki Guarantee, ever since the party failed to win a majority on its own, the references to his government has swiftly moved to “NDA government” from the “Modi government”.
“You have seen our behaviour after the 4th. We know how to handle our victory. Our sanskar is such that we don’t take victory too seriously and neither do we mock those who have been defeated. You can ask any child whose government was in power before the Lok Sabha elections? They will say the NDA. Then ask who formed the government after 2024, and they will say the NDA. So how did we lose? It was an NDA government in the past, still is and will be.”
The biggest blow to the BJP’s final tally came from India’s largest state Uttar Pradesh where it won only 33 seats. Overall, the NDA — BJP and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) — won only 36 seats in comparison to the INDIA bloc’s 43 seats in the northern state. The Samajwadi Party alone won 37 seats, while the BJP won 33, the Congress six, RLD two and Apna Dal (Soneylal) one, and Azad Samaj Party one.
While the main table gave pride of place to all the BJP allies who are now crucial to the government formation, interestingly, Jayant Chaudhary of the RLD, was conspicuous by his absence and was made to sit with other new MPs, even though Anupriya Patel whose Apna Dal (Soneylal) won only one seat in comparison to the RLD’s two got a seat at the main table. Chaudhary who was part of the INDIA bloc had joined the NDA in February ahead of the elections.
Besides Patel, allies who found place at the table included Pawan Kalyan of the Janasena Party, Chirag Paswan of the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) and H.D Kumaraswamy of the Janata Dal (Secular), Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde of the Shiv Sena, and Ajit Pawar of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). BJP leaders Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh and party president J.P. Nadda were also at the main table at the front.
While the BJP had set a target of 400 paar for the 2024 elections, it failed to reach its 2019 tally of 303. The only acknowledgement of any setback faced in this election came from Nitish Kumar while he announced his party’s support to Modi.
Also read: Modi Stands Defeated But He’s Not Giving Up His Destructive Plan for a Thousand Year Raj
“For ten years he has been the prime minister and will be the prime minister again. He has served the whole country and whatever is left of any state will fulfil those promises too. We are with him. You should know that I feel, next time when you come, some seats have been won here and there this time, but next time they (Opposition) will lose all. By saying meaningless things what have they done? Have they done any work or served the country in any way till then? This mandate that has come, will leave nothing for them in the future,” he said.
Meanwhile, Modi stressed on the strength of the NDA as an alliance calling it an “organic alliance” that stands for “New India, Developed India, Aspirational India”.
While he did not focus on the losses made by his party in the 2024 elections, he attacked the Opposition Congress for not having come close to the BJP’s tally in ten years. “Even after 10 years, Congress could not touch the figure of 100 seats. If I combine the 2014, 2019 and 2024 elections, Congress did not even get as many seats as the BJP got in this election. I can clearly see the people of the INDI alliance don’t know how they were sinking earlier but now they are going to sink at a fast pace.”
No mention of Uttar Pradesh and Jai Shree Ram again
In another indication of the losses and setbacks in the elections, as in his victory speech on Tuesday, Modi once again left out any mention of Uttar Pradesh and chose to praise the Lord Jagannath despite making the Ram Temple in Ayodhya a core campaign issue. Though he did mention Tamil Nadu and praised party workers there, despite the BJP not winning a seat in the state.
“In this election, I want to mention a few things that I have noticed. In South India, NDA has strengthened the foundation for new politics. Look at Karnataka and Telangana, state governments were recently formed there. But people’s trust broke within moments and they came out of an illusion and accepted NDA in Karnataka and Telangana. Along with this, I want to congratulate our team in Tamil Nadu. Several knew that perhaps we will not be able to win any seat but we would be united in this fight and worked hard. For this reason we might not have been able to win a seat in Tamil Nadu but the swiftness with which NDA’s vote share has increased there, it is giving a clear message about what is written in the future. Whether it is Puducherry or Kerala. In Kerala, UDF and LDF have oppressed those with a particular ideology, more than in Jammu and Kashmir. Despite the fact there was no victory in sight, hundreds of our workers made sacrifices for generations and for the first time, we have a representative from Kerala.”
Also read: The South India Story: How The Congress Faltered Yet the BJP’s Saffronisation Plan Didn’t Work
Like in his victory speech, Modi once again praised Lord Jagannath and Odisha, where the BJP is set to form its first state government.
“I believe there are many forms of God but when I think about Lord Jagannath, I believe that he is the God of the poor. The revolutionary results that have come in Odisha, I can say that our dream of Viksit Bharat, with the blessing of Lord Jagannath, Odisha will be one of the growth engines of the ‘vikas yatra’ of the country in the next 25 years, not ten years as I had said earlier,” he said.
EVMs and alliances
“When the results of June 4th came in, I was busy with some work. Later when celebrations started, I said that these figures are fine but I asked ‘Is the EVM alive or has it died?’ Because these people have decided that people should lose their faith in Indian elections and democracy. I thought they will protest against EVMs. But after June 4 EVMs have silenced them. This is the strength of Indian democracy,” Modi said.
Further, he added that the NDA is “committed” to the spirit of nation first and “reflects” the spirit of India and asserted that the alliance was “committed to principle of ‘sarv pantha sambhava‘ (all sections are equal).”
Later on Friday after meeting President Murmu and staking claim to form the government, Modi said that the oath taking ceremony will take place on June 9. He said that Murmu had made him the prime minister designate and that the NDA will “form a stable government”.
Read all of The Wire’s reporting on and analysis of the 2024 election results here.
