New Delhi: The BJP-led NDA and the INDIA bloc are locked in a tight contest, show early trends of the Lok Sabha election, with candidates of the Opposition parties securing a lead in over 200 seats, contrary to exit polls that had predicted a resounding mandate for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The NDA, however, has crossed the halfway mark of 272 going by the initial trends, but it is the performance of the Congress, which is leading in over 90 seats, and its allies, that has emerged as the talking point as the counting progresses across the country.
The exit polls had predicted that the elections were a shoo-in for the BJP, which is targeting a third straight term in office under the leadership of Modi. The party was looking to register substantial gains in the southern and eastern parts of India, while maintaining its dominance in the Hindi heartland.
Initial trends around 10 am show that while the BJP’s tally is likely to rise in Odisha, in West Bengal, the TMC is holding the ground. On the southern coast, the BJP was hoping to make inroads in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, but the party is unlikely to make any substantial headway on that front.
The NDA, which comprises BJP and its allies, had taken the lead in 291 seats by 10 am. The Opposition’s INDIA bloc was ahead in 216 seats, fuelled primarily by the better than expected show of the Congress, SP, Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (Sharad Pawar).
The BJP went to the polls banking on the personal appeal of Modi, welfarism through measures such as distribution of free food grains, and the fulfillment of core ideological commitments such as the construction of the Ram Mandir and the abrogation of Article 370.
However, if the trends hold in the NDA’s favour, Modi may get to equal the record of the country’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru by getting the opportunity to serve three straight terms as the premier.
Nehru, who had steered the Congress to a landslide victory for the third time in 1962, could not complete his last term in office as he passed away in May 1964. The Opposition had put up a spirited fight by forging the pre-poll INDIA bloc alliance.
It was hoping that seat-sharing across states would prevent a split in opposition votes that benefits the BJP. Even as the exit polls predicted a big win for the BJP, the Opposition insisted that the 2024 verdict would be a reprise of 2004 when the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government failed to retain power contrary to what the pollsters said.
The BJP’s campaign pitch, initially premised on turning India into a developed nation, took a divisive turn after the first phase of polling on 19 April, with the Prime Minister, in speech after speech, raising the specter of a majority under siege, accusing the Congress of plotting to redistribute the nation’s resources and wealth among Muslims. He also likened the Congress manifesto to that of the Muslim League.
The Congress primarily mounted its campaign on the twin planks of social justice and economic welfare, with Rahul Gandhi promising a socio-economic caste census to address historical injustices and surveys to ascertain the concentration of wealth in India.
For now, on the way to registering a significant bump in its numbers, the Congress, which had won only 44 and 52 seats in 2014 and 2019 respectively, appears well-placed to remain the Opposition’s political centre of gravity.
This was particularly significant in light of Nationalist Congress Party founder Sharad Pawar’s remarks that regional parties, in the coming years, were likely to explore the possibility of associating closely, or even merging with the Congress.
(Edited by Tony Rai)