India has just witnessed one of the most remarkable Lok Sabha elections in its post-Independence history. The Opposition INDIA coalition fought with the dice heavily loaded against it. There was simply no level playing field.
Federal agencies like the Enforcement Directorate and Central Bureau of Investigation targeted Opposition leaders. The mainstream media—entirely biased toward the ruling party—amplified the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi while relentlessly ridiculing the Opposition. Garnering close to Rs 6,000 crore from Electoral Bonds alone, the BJP used its massive money power to attempt to crush rivals in the political arena. But lo and behold, the humble, anonymous Indian voter has come to the rescue of India’s beleaguered democracy. The voter has delivered a reality check on the arrogance of power.
The BJP’s one-nation-one-leader-one-party pitch has been torn apart by voters and lies in tatters. The Modi-led BJP, which was touting that it would cross 400 seats, today has failed to reach the halfway mark of 272 seats in result predictions and is now totally dependent on allies. It shows that Modi’s hot air balloon has been sharply punctured. Many of these allies, such as the Chandrababu Naidu-led Telugu Desam Party, may not be comfortable with the divisive, anti-Muslim, uber-Hindutva, and supremacist agenda that the BJP represents. In fact, this verdict clearly reveals that it is India’s diversity and federal identity that moves the voter. The BJP’s message of a single-leader-single-party monolith has been slapped down.
Fall of double engine sarkar
In three major states—Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal—the voters have rejected the BJP. The way UP has turned, a state once projected as BJP’s second Hindutva laboratory after Gujarat, is quite incredible. The Narendra Modi-Yogi Adityanath “double engine” model has cut no ice with voters increasingly beleaguered by daily hardships and an authoritarian, unresponsive administration that is too busy fighting ideological battles to address real public concerns.
In Maharashtra, voters have signaled stern disapproval of the brazenly cynical way the BJP split the Shiv Sena and Sharad Pawar’s NCP, and toppled Uddhav Thackeray’s MVA government in the naked pursuit of power by foul means. The Maharashtra results show a sympathy wave both for Pawar and Thackeray.
In West Bengal, voters have stood firm with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. They have shown solidarity against the injustices meted out to Bengal by the Modi-led Centre, which has denied the state its dues for central schemes. The voter has shown a deep awareness of the politics of threat and fear played by the Modi government, and has bolstered Opposition leaders fighting against the politics of brute force.
The Modi brand of politics—a bludgeoning personality cult, dismissive condescension toward the states, foul language used in public against seasoned regional leaders, and scornfully riding roughshod over other parties—has failed the election test. Voters have repudiated such politics in its entirety.
Also read: It’s time for BJP’s ‘ghar wapsi’ into RSS fold now—2024 LS election results are a signal
A louder Opposition
For the Opposition, dissenting citizens, and those who were thirsting for a free and open civil society, these results provide some much-needed breathing space. Over the last 10 years, Opposition has been constantly targeted, critics have been jailed, dissenters have been muzzled and civil society has been terrorised by a steady stream of sedition and defamation cases. Now, the Opposition has a much louder and more determined voice and can function as it was meant to—as a check on executive overreach and the government’s use of force against dissent.
If Modi and the BJP succeed in forming a coalition government, they can no longer ram through fanciful ideas like ‘One Nation, One Election’ or even the Uniform Civil Code in Parliament. The Modi-led BJP can no longer suspend Opposition MPs, nor can it attempt to push through constitutional amendments. Whichever government now comes to power will have to work on the principle that India’s governments always worked on before the advent of the divisive Modi. Principles of consensus and reconciliation will trump the political name-calling and hate-filled demonisation of individuals and communities. Voters have instructed the BJP to behave like a political party in a democracy, not as a troll army running a dictatorship through fear and intimidation.
Indian voters have had enough of the BJP’s misuse of religion. The party was using religious polarisation and hatred to target communities. Voters have now said: Enough is enough. Shockingly, the BJP was defeated in Faizabad, the constituency of Ayodhya and the Ram Mandir. Voters do not want religion to be used to grab political power. India’s humblest citizens, the majority of Dalit-dominated constituencies have voted for the Opposition and have upheld democracy in its hour of crisis. Where the supine media failed, high and mighty institutions buckled, and the richest tycoons crawled, the poorest Indian voters have shown majestic courage.
The poor have shown that they are not satisfied with the crumbs of free rations; they demand the dignity of fair treatment and the right to decent livelihoods. In a brutally unequal society, those with no access to power and glory, who do not strut with peacocks on manicured lawns posing for endless photographs, have shown what it means to be a rational and sane democracy. Ninety-two of 150 Dalit-dominated constituencies voted for the INDIA alliance. A salute here to India’s founders who laid down the foundations of our representative democracy in which the last man and woman were given that most precious right—the right to vote, and the right to bring down pompous VIPs who betray their mandate.
The 2024 general election’s verdict is a massive loss of face for Modi. The BJP campaign was entirely centred around him, and now the BJP has failed to cross the majority mark. Even if the BJP forms an NDA government with the support of allies, the moral authority of Modi is finished. There is no better moment than now to bring in a leader who is naturally more accommodative and cooperative than Modi can ever be. India has sent a clear message. The country demands a new Prime Minister.
The writer is a Rajya Sabha MP, All India Trinamool Congress (AITC). She tweets @sagarikaghose. Views are personal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)
Are you here because you were missing getting trolled on other social media platforms?
This is another click bait strategy . Get a publicly reviled figure to write something. People view it just to see what more crap can this person come up with. And every view is more revenue.
Don’t convey your hatred for PM by bringing voters in. Voters have given 240 seats to Modi which no other party has been able to come close.
Gloating time for libtards, without looking closely at the results.
That one cannot say. But they certainly want more jobs for themselves, not just jumbo Cabinets and an ever expanding bureaucracy. What ever happened to Minimum Government.
All the INDI Alliance partners polled less than the BJP and you saying India demands a new PM…??? Baffling logic !!