Sravasti Dasgupta 
New Delhi: The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has unanimously elected caretaker Prime Minister Narendra Modi as its leader after a meeting was held in New Delhi on Wednesday (June 5), which was attended by a total of 21 leaders.
The proposal passed by the NDA leaders at the meeting and that was accessed by The Wire stated: “We are proud that the 2024 Lok Sabha elections was fought and won unitedly under Narendra Modi. We, the leaders of the NDA, unanimously elect Narendra Modi as our leader.”
“Under Modi’s leadership the NDA government worked towards the development of the poor, women, youth, farmers, and served the oppressed and backward citizens of India. The NDA will continue to work to improve the living conditions of every section of Indian society.”
The meeting comes after the BJP fell short of an absolute majority on its own, winning 240 seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, for which results were announced on Tuesday.
The BJP is now looking at its NDA allies to form the government at the centre.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
Crucial to this alliance is the Janata Dal (United) (JD(U)) led by Nitish Kumar and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) led by Chandrababu Naidu.
While the two parties have become crucial for a third term for Modi, they have both been NDA partners in the past, left the alliance and returned ahead of elections, leaving the door open to uncertainty.
The NDA has 286 seats while the INDIA bloc has 201 seats.
Nitish’s and Naidu’s importance was evidenced by their being seated right next to Modi at the NDA meeting.
After the meeting, the JD(U)’s political advisor and national spokesperson K.C. Tyagi said to The Wire that in the meeting, all NDA members including the JD(U) and the TDP gave letters of support for Modi to be the leader of the alliance again.
“All the alliance members gave letters of support to make Modi the alliance leader again, including the JD(U) and the TDP,” he said to The Wire.
The JD(U) was at the forefront of the opposition INDIA alliance, with Nitish seen as its chief architect.
But just months before the Lok Sabha elections in January, he resigned as Bihar chief minister, left the INDIA bloc, rejoined the NDA and took oath as chief minister for the ninth time.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the NDA has won 29 of the total 40 seats in the state, with the JD(U) and the BJP winning 12 seats each, the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) (LJP(RV)) led by Chirag Paswan winning five and the Hindustani Awami Morcha (HAM) winning one.
The INDIA bloc, including the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Congress, won four and three seats respectively.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation won two seats in the state.
With the JD(U) now crucial to government formation, questions are being raised about whether it will push for special category status for Bihar – one of the party’s longstanding demands.
In November 2023, just months before he rejoined the NDA in January, Nitish had promised a statewide agitation if the Union government did not grant special status to Bihar.
“Special category status has been a longstanding demand for us, but it is not a precondition for the alliance. We are happy to support this government. But we have not given up on the special status and we will be taking it up at a later stage,” said Tyagi.
Special category status also led the TDP to pull out of the NDA in 2018 in the wake of the Modi government’s refusal to grant it to Andhra Pradesh.
In February 2019, Amit Shah had declared that the NDA’s doors were permanently closed for Naidu, whom he labelled as a “u-turn CM”.
However, he returned to the NDA fold in March, just a week before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections were announced.
“How can we contest elections if we are not a part of the NDA? We fought this collectively. I don’t know why you have this doubt. The meeting was good,” Naidu told reporters after the meeting.
In Andhra Pradesh the NDA won a total of 21 of the 25 seats the state has in the Lok Sabha. The TDP won 16 seats, the BJP three and the Jana Sena Party (JSP) two.
In the assembly elections that were conducted simultaneously in the state, the TDP routed the ruling YSR Congress, winning 135 of the total 175 seats.
The BJP and JSP won eight and 21 seats respectively, while the YSRCP won 11.
The meeting on Wednesday was attended by Modi, BJP president J.P. Nadda and newly elected BJP MPs Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh.
It was attended by a total of 21 leaders from the JD(U), Shiv Sena (Shinde), LJP, Janata Dal (Secular) (JD(S)), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Apna Dal (Soneylal) (ADS), Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL), Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), Sikkim Krantikari Morcha and All Jharkhand Students Union Party (AJSU).
The NDA leaders who attended the meeting included the TDP’s Naidu, Nitish of the JDU, Eknath Shinde (Shiv Sena Shinde), H.D. Kumaraswamy (JDS), Chirag Paswan (LJP), Jitan Ram Manjhi (Hindustani Awam Morcha), Pawan Kalyan (JSP), Sunil Tatkare (NCP), Anupriya Patel (ADS), Jayant Chaudhary (RLD), Praful Patel (NCP), Pramod Boro (UPPL), Atul Bora (AGP), Indra Hang Subba (SKM), Sudesh Mahto (AJSU), Rajiv Ranjan Singh (JDU), Sanjay Jha (JDU).