India election results 2024: Modi has to talked with coalition parties for new government setup where opposition make a strong come back in general elections
Narendra Modi is due to meet his allies today to discuss forming the next government, a day after his Hindu nationalist party lost an outright majority in parliament in a surprisingly close election.
Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alone won 240 seats in the general election, 32 short of the halfway mark in the 543-member lower house, according to official results announced late yesterday.
The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won 293 seats, more than 20 more than the 272 seats needed to form the government.
INDIA’s opposition alliance, led by Rahul Gandhi’s centrist Congress party, won 230 seats, far more than expected. The Congress alone won 99, almost double the 52 it won in 2019. Not only did the surprise jump boost Mr Gandhi’s position, the alliance is also debating its own next steps and has yet to concede defeat.
The role of kingmaker for the next government now falls to two key BJP allies – Nitish Kumar and Chandrababu Naidu. Their parties Janata Dal (United) and Telugu Desam Party which have 12 and 16 seats respectively.
Key ally reiterates support for Modi
Chandrababu Naidu, a key alliance partner of Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, reiterated support for the Hindu nationalist party.
“You always want news. I am experienced and have seen several political changes in this country. We are in NDA, I am going to NDA meeting. We will announce it over time,” he said, referring to the National Democratic Alliance.
His Telugu Desam Party won 16 seats in the general election and is a key ally of the BJP, which fell short of the majority mark of 272 under Mr Modi’s leadership and won 240 seats.
Markets fell again in early trading on Wednesday
India’s two main indices, the NSE Nifty 50 and the S&P BSE Sensex, are down again today, each about 0.1 percent, after dropping about six percent each yesterday.
A weaker-than-expected mandate for Narendra Modi sparked record foreign outflows and spooked investor sentiment on concerns about the pace of pro-business reforms.
Volatility rose to its highest level since March 2022 before easing a bit this morning.
A weakened majority for Mr. Modi’s alliance could pose challenges to more ambitious elements of the government’s reform agenda, ratings agency Fitch said.
But he added: “Despite the slimmer majority, we expect broad policy continuity to remain, with the government focusing on its capital squeeze, ease of business measures and gradual fiscal consolidation.
Indian elections reveal voters favor ‘social justice, secularism and federalism’
The election results reveal that Indian voters still favor the values of social justice, secularism and federalism enshrined in the constitution, says Dr Shubranshu Mishra, a lecturer in politics and international relations at the University of Exeter.
“The much-hyped inauguration of a Ram temple in Ayodhya, a major constituency that the ruling BJP eventually lost in the Hindi heartland of Uttar Pradesh, did not turn out to be the key issue for voters as the ruling party had anticipated. ” he says in a statement to The Independent, referring to the inauguration ceremony in January, which critics saw as the launch of Mr Modi’s election campaign.
Hate speech by the BJP, including from the prime minister, has not gone down well with voters, he says, in an apparent reference to Mr Modi’s targeting of Muslims in a series of election speeches, calling 200 million people “infiltrators”.
Highlighting the gains made by the Congress-led opposition alliance, he says: “Although Prime Minister Modi will return to power for a third consecutive term, his majority will be reduced as INDIA’s Congress-led alliance makes an impressive comeback. defying all exit poll predictions.
“The significant contribution is this strong resurgence of Rahul Gandhi in these elections, despite the fact that they were not held on a level playing field.
“Total control over the key pillars of democracy, including the Electoral Commission and the Judiciary, limited space for dissent, challenges to federalism and a biased Lapland media was strikingly evident.
“This mandate will play a key role in holding the government accountable and their key contentious and divisive initiatives such as the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) are likely to take a back seat.”
Controversial Bollywood actor Kangana Ranaut has won the parliamentary elections
Bollywood actor Kangana Ranaut has been elected as an MP in India, joining a small crowd from the film industry in the country’s new parliament.
Ranaut ran for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party in Mandi, a seat in her northern home state of Himachal Pradesh, and won by a margin of less than 75,000 votes.
Ranaut, the breakout star of the well-received 2013 Bollywood hit Queen, has become the most prominent Indian celebrity to openly and closely align herself with Modi’s ruling party after it first came to power in 2014, championing its Hindu nationalist cause.
