As the results of the 2024 elections came trickling in, it was clear that the ‘silent’ voter had spoken quite strongly. The march of the ruling party, that was confident of a third term in office was halted in its tracks and had to claim a mandate under the wider cloak of the alliance it was leading. As the results settled, the ruling party was downplaying its own (under) performance and highlighting the majority secured by the coalition. The Opposition alliance led by the Congress is just 60 seats behind the ruling coalition in the new Lok Sabha.
Post-poll survey | Methodology
Two important distinctions were visible in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the Indian National Developmental, Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) coalition.
Firstly, the composition of the two alliances: the BJP accounted for 80 percent of the NDA coalition while the Congress was a little over 40 percent of the INDIA coalition. The number of those not part of either coalition had shrunk to 18.
Secondly, the number of the non-BJP NDA had risen to 53 (compared to 50 in 2019) and the BJP had fallen by over 63 seats. In other words, the NDA shrank because its man anchor has failed to perform adequately. In the case of INDIA, it was a newly founded alliance –though somewhat of a revised United Progressive Alliance (UPA). The Congress saw an 80 percent rise in its seats from 52 to 99. The other parties in the INDIA alliance also saw a rise in their share of seats. Principal among them were the Samajwadi Party and the Trinamool Congress. Thus, for INDIA, almost every member benefitted and contributed to its overall performance.
The decline in the seats of the BJP was largely on account of its performance in the Hindi heartland States of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar and the reversals it faced in Maharashtra, Karnataka and West Bengal. It made up for some of these losses in Telangana and Odisha but the recoveries were far less than its deficits. The CSDS-Lokniti post-poll survey 2024, provides some insights into understanding the twists and turns that explain the electoral outcomes. This overview piece highlights the broad patterns, and the accompanying thematic articles assess them more in detail.
The support and opposition to a third term were clearly on party lines. Those who favoured re-electing the BJP justified the same based on the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the perceived good governance and the development of the country. On the other hand, a majority of those who opposed a third term for the incumbent government mentioned unemployment and price rise as the key reasons. This polarisation is reflected in the results. More than three-fourths of those fully satisfied with the government voted for the BJP and its allies. Half of those somewhat satisfied with the incumbent government voted for the NDA. More than three-fourths of those fully dissatisfied with the performance of the BJP government voted for the Congress and its allies.
Party or candidate?
When choosing a party, did the voters primarily take into account the leadership issue?
Survey data indicates that this was not the case. Close to half the respondents indicated that they voted for a party while a little over one-third focused on the candidate. Just one of every ten kept the leadership factor in mind. Given the BJP’s focus on the leadership factor during the election campaign, the post-poll survey has some important insights on the same.
There is a clear five percentage point decline, in the preference for Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister if one were to compare the 2024 and 2019 figures. The gap between Mr. Modi and Rahul Gandhi as the preferred Prime Minister in 2024, has fallen by nine percentage points as compared to 2019. For those who voted for the BJP and its allies the impact of Mr. Modi’s leadership continued to be high. There was of course a critical difference. One out of every four BJP voters said that they would have changed the way they voted if Mr. Modi were not the Prime Ministerial candidate of the BJP. These numbers have declined as compared to 2019. The main factor in the BJP campaign this time around, had a much lesser impact as compared to the previous election.
One did notice a very heated election campaign with a lot of charges and counter charges being made. It is important to record that two-thirds of the respondents reported deciding on who to vote for only after the candidates were announced. Nearly one-fourth said that they took this call on the day of voting or a few days prior to voting. This does imply that the issues raised in the campaign, the assurances held out by parties and the attack on their rivals could well have impacted their final decision. It is important to note that economic issues were an important focus of the campaign.
The reach and implication of the welfare schemes will surely be discussed by scholars for a long time to come. However, our first cut analysis suggests that they may have had a limited impact in shaping the outcome. More than three-fourths of the respondents reported not benefitting from the housing scheme of the government. Another seven of every 10 said that they had not benefitted from the Ayushman Bharat (Health Insurance) Scheme. Yet another two-thirds did not benefit from the MNREGA employment scheme. It is only the Public Distribution System (PDS) and the Ujjwala Yojana which found the reporting of many beneficiaries. Thus, with price rise and unemployment being highlighted by several respondents, the absence of visible solutions to these problems seems to have also played on the mind of the voters.
The post-poll survey also points out to distinct demographic factors that impacted of voting patterns. The BJP appeared to have a higher percentage of support among the younger voters while the vote for the Congress and its allies was spread across age groups. The BJP vote share rises among those with greater access to education while in the case of the Congress and its allies, the support is uniform across education levels. While the BJP continues to hold on to the votes of the rich, the middle class seems to be less intense in its support.
When there is a somewhat ambiguous verdict, when voters are more evenly spread across parties and when any party fails to get a clear ‘mandate’, the support for parties across different social sections is also somewhat flatly distributed. This election outcome manifests this fact. Although the BJP surely has a certain social profile as described above, the broad pattern is that its electoral support is rather evenly spread. The real difference that one should be looking at took place at the State level.
As we already know, the verdict varies from State to State, even within a region. Broadly, the BJP did well in the South and the East making it a more evenly spread party across the country. But in the process, it also lost crucial support in the States of north India. Therefore, different social coalitions have propped up both the BJP and its opponents in different States. This means that the ongoing process of nationalisation of the social base of the BJP has slightly halted and altered. The BJP would now find itself in a situation where its voters are coming from disparate social groups in different States.
Electoral support
However, there are two baseline features of its electoral support for the BJP. One is its continued limitation in reaching out to the minorities and the other is its extra-ordinarily strong base among the upper castes. This time too, as in 2019, more than half of the upper caste voters have reportedly voted the BJP.
The 2024 election indicates a return to the phase of genuine coalition politics. We did have a coalition government for the last decade. That was, however, a coalition with a dominant party with a majority of its own. The BJP then could give a notional representation to its allies in the Union Council of Ministers. This time around the allies of the BJP in the NDA would expect a fairer share of places in the Ministry as also the key portfolios.
So what has changed this time? We argue that BJP might not have lost greatly among many social sections. Yet, the losses at the State level among various social sections pushed the BJP below the majority mark and also denied any addition to its overall vote share. Secondly, the drop in BJP’s seat share has brought the era of coalitions back to the centre of power equations. These two developments slow down the process of BJP becoming a dominant party that it had almost become during the last decade.
Sandeep Shastri is Director-Academics, NITTE Education Trust and the National Coordinator of the Lokniti Network
Suhas Palshikar taught political science and is chief editor of Studies in Indian Politics
Sanjay Kumar is Professor and Co-director Lokniti-CSDS
