Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty 
New Delhi: At last, the curtain has come down on a tediously long round of elections.
Results of these seven-phase parliamentary polls, and one state election, would start trickling in on June 4, while the outcome of two other state assembly polls, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, would be known later today, June 2.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
Till then, the jury is out on whether the public unrest palpable on the ground in several states over issues like growing unemployment and inflation particularly can kick up a groundswell against the Modi regime. At the moment though, what needs holding up are these eight strands that have made these multi-phased elections stand out.
Low voter turnout
Compared to the 2014 and the 2019 general elections, the 2024 elections have registered a lower voter turnout, so much so that it worried even the ruling party regarding its prospects of returning to power.
Poll pundits have, however, read this lower percentage of voting across the phases in multiple ways – peak summer; slowing down of the voting process at some booths; general voter disinterest in the polls; voter overconfidence that Modi will return to power; etc.
Whatever could be the reason/reasons behind this phenomenon, what is undeniable is this: while the last two general elections had marked the rise of the Right in India through Narendra Modi like never before, the voting percentage in this election doesn’t quite indicate any overwhelming support to push Modi and sole agenda of promoting Hindutva further up, that is, even after he had claimed to have fulfilled the construction of the Ram temple at Ayodhya, the wellspring of the BJP since the 1990s.
First Indian prime minister to instigate one community against another
Earlier this week, former prime minister Manmohan Singh went on record stating that Modi was the first Indian prime minister to have lowered the dignity of the office. Well, we don’t need Singh to break his silence on the matter, because, even a cursory look at what Modi has been telling the public in a volley of BJP election rallies very well drives home the point.
Those incendiary speeches have ensured that Modi will go down in the country’s electoral history for openly instigating one community against the other to garner votes. He began seeking Hindu votes through polarisation of voters in a roundabout way first, using a veiled term to refer to the Muslim community – “those who have more children” – in Rajasthan on April 25; and went on to take the name, ‘Muslims’, as the veritable enemy whom the Hindus must guard against by choosing him and his party. Else, the Opposition Congress would snatch the ‘mangalsutra’ of the Hindu women, and the ‘buffaloes’ of Hindu families to distribute them among the Muslims.
On May 7, the prime minister asked Hindu voters to choose between ‘Ram Rajya” (The Rule of Ram) and ‘Vote Jihad’, apparently being carried out by the Muslim community in cahoots with the Opposition parties.
A prime minister is bound by the constitution and its tenets which also includes secularism. Modi, in these elections, has clearly broken that sacred rule. If infamy can clinch a place in history, he is clearly the winner here.
The fear of losing the constitution
Even while the Prime Minister was violating the constitutional principles in his poll campaigns, what has caught up with him is also that if the man returns to his seat once more, he would change the constitution itself — a narrative he and his party seemed to be clearly not prepared for. It is also the narrative noted for the first time in a general election.
The intent to change the Constitution post 2024 win of Modi sprung out of his party stable first; that both Modi and his deputy, Amit Shah, began amplifying the slogan of ‘400-paar’ (cross the mark of 400 seats in parliament) for the party in the polls confirmed that fear, particularly among the Dalits, as the constitution is a gift to the nation by the country’s biggest Dalit face, Babasaheb Ambedkar.
The Dalit vote in Uttar Pradesh is crucial for the BJP in several pockets for it to repeat its 2019 harvest. If the fear of the Constitution leads the Dalit vote to lock hands with the Muslims of UP, the state with the highest number of LS seats may not bear good news to Modi’s party this time around. That fear in Modi was reflected in some of his poll speeches; he accused the Congress of ‘insulting the Constitution’ during the Emergency, also hatching a plan this time around to ‘change the Constitution’ by bringing in reservation based not on caste but on religion. The Dalit community is a beneficiary of the caste-based reservation granted through the Constitution.
Whether Modi’s let minute twist will turn things in his party’s favour is awaited, but what is already noted is not before the 2024 elections did the fear of losing the constitution become an issue for voters to choose a party.
Trust deficit in the Election Commission
While the Prime Minister was hitting world headlines for leading from the front to polarise these elections on communal lines, all eyes were on the Election Commission of India (ECI)’s actions or inaction to put a firm stop to it. After all, it is a body empowered to protect constitutional values.
Alas, the silence and pussy-footing of the ECI has ensured a loss of its credibility like never before in public eye. Even during the declared Emergency, there was no widespread public suspicion over the impartiality of the Commission.
The Election Commissioners. In the background are BJP leaders.
The ECI earned that infamy by dint of its continuous reluctance to publish the voter percentage and the number of actual voters just after the voting ended in each phase as it should have been. It pushed a section of civil society members to knock at the door of the Supreme Court — most likely a first during a general election.
What also bears a connection to the loss of ECI’s credibility and impartiality is also how two of the election commissioners were picked by the Modi government by setting aside the Supreme Court’s directive on the formation of the selection committee. Weeks before the country was to go to polls, the two election commissioners were handpicked by the Prime Minister and his deputy, Amit Shah. Those officials, till then, were driving some of the flagship programmes of the government that would help hoist further Brand Modi to the public.
Counting after the term of assemblies end
The 2024 polls would go down in history for another crucial aberration, which, though, has not attracted much discussion either in the media or in the Opposition parties. Along with the parliamentary polls, the ECI carried out simultaneous voting for three state assemblies too — Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim.
Elections are typically held by the Commission keeping in mind that there should be a few days left for a government to be sworn in before the term of the last House ends. Perhaps for the first time in several years, the Commission broke that rule for the Sikkim and the Arunachal Pradesh assemblies.
The term of both the assemblies ends today, June 2. Clearly, the ECI didn’t take that fact into cognisance when it announced In March that voting for both the general elections and the state assemblies would take place on June 4. A day later, it remembered the constitutional practice, and hurriedly advanced the date from June 4 to June 2. Still, if the governors don’t swear in these state governments by the end of today (June 2), wily-nilly, somewhere, the ECI would be a party to weakening of a constitutional practice.
This flip-flop by the current election commissioners also punctures the long-held public perception that ECI prepares for an election with rigour.
The invincibility of Modi punctured
If the credibility of the current election commissioners have been punctured in these polls, so is the invincibility of the man who heads the committee that has appointed them. No more is any Opposition leader or a man on the street fear questioning Modi in public lest they attract raids, probes, arrests, or even lynchings by Hindutva forces. Roti kapra makan (basic livelihood) issues are back as poll narratives, like it used to be in a typical Indian election. This return to the basics has certainly emboldened voters to ask hard questions to the government of the day. This paradigm shift, however, may not have enough wind yet to destabilise Modi but the fragility of that carefully crafted public persona of the prime minister is clearly showing.
High voter turnout in Kashmir
A deviation noticed in these elections was also a record turnout of voters in Kashmir. Hordes of Kashmiris came out of their homes in all the five phases, to cast their ballot — leaving many political watchers baffled at the turn of things. Kashmir, since the militancy dates, have mot shown much interest in elections. The 2024 elections were the first polls held in Jammu and Kashmir after the Centre had set aside Article 370 of the Constitution and the state becoming a union territory.
While Modi-Shah have termed the high voter turnout a proof of their success in bringing peace and stability in the Kashmir valley, news report have, however, stated that it could be the result of peeved Kashmiris expressing their angst for the government’s actions through the ballot.
Boycott of polls in parts of North-East
While Kashmiris came out in droves to vote, voters in at least six districts of Nagaland and one in Manipur, peeved at the Modi government, abstained from voting in these general elections.
While the Kuki community in Manipur’s Kangpokpi district (some in Churachandpur district too) didn’t vote, demanding that the Centre grant them a ‘separate administration’ post the ethnic violence in that state, Tuensang, Mon, Longing, Kihire, Noklak and Shamator districts of Nagaland too stayed away from the poll booths, annoyed at Amit Shah for not fulfilling his promise to carve our the state of Eastern Nagaland comprising these areas.
Political activists predicting poll results with numbers
Typically, June 1 evening has shown that before the actual counting of votes takes place after any general election, the exit polls conducted by media agencies in collaboration with news channels become the predictors of the poll outcome. The barrage of numbers began to flow just hours after the last votes were polled.
The 2024 general elections, will, however, go down in history, for also having seen that cascade of numbers much before the exit polls began throwing any on the television screens.
The narrative of the number game, who might win how much, was led by former psephologist and now a political activist, Yogendra Yadav, in the digital media, a growing space for news in India. Soon another political activist, Prashant Kishor, joined the narrative, only to be followed by some faces of the media agencies that carry out the exit polls.
While there was no parity of numbers noticed in that exercise, what must be acknowledged is those discussions certainly rammed home the point that unlike traditional media (read TV channels) portraying it to be a one-sided affair, the elections came across as a closely fought one between the ruling dispensation and the Opposition alliance.
The result is an anxious wait for June 4.