By all appearances, the 2024 general elections was projected ? most of all by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), its allies, and significant sections of the telecast media ? as one that would give the BJP an overwhelming majority. Results day on June 4, 2024, offered the party a weak victory. Without a majority on its own, the BJP sought the support of regional parties, its pre-poll allies from the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), to form the government on June 9, 2024. The question before many, who were led by political rhetoric and pollsters, is: How did this happen?

Long-time scholar on Indian politics, Andrew Wyatt, Associate Professor of Politics, University of Bristol, U.K., argues that the verdict delivered by India’s voters in 2024 is consistent with long-term trends in the country’s politics; in particular, its embedded pluralisms across political strata ? state, political entities, and individual aspirants to public office ? make it “extremely hard for parties to dominate national and State politics”. Outside the political realm, the cultural and social pluralism in Indian society imposed electoral limits for the BJP’s Hindu majoritarianism. The 2024 elections, he concludes, brought out the complexity of Indian politics in which it would be difficult for a single party or ideology to maintain long-term dominance.

As India heads towards the home run of its 18th General Election-with just the last of the seven phases to be held on June 1, the slogans, posturing, and promises held out by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) point to a shifting of what was till recently taken as solid electoral ground beneath the party’s feet. At this stage of the election, Arjun Appadurai, Professor Emeritus, Media, Culture and Communication, New York University , connects the dots between popular political discourse, the approach of the ruling party to governance, its furtherance of its ideological agenda in a plural India, and the manner in which it has read the electorate.

Pointing out that “the Indian elections are simply too big and too local for control by any dictator or party”, Prof. Appadurai postulates that religious agendas have a limiting reach in a country like India ? rooted in locality and caste ? and explains the context behind the constant and steep ratcheting up of the BJP’s calls for an India of its desire. The return of the party, and its leadership, to the pre-development sloganeering, he says, is reflective of its inability to move beyond its foundational ideological moorings.

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance won a majority in Parliament for a third consecutive term after the results were declared for the 18th Lok Sabha elections on June 4, 2024. The BJP managed to win 240 seats, emerging as the single largest party. The opposition alliance, the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (I.N.D.I.A.) managed to cobble up 234 seats with the principal opposition party, the Indian National Congress, bagging 99 seats. The results for these elections can be accessed by clicking the link below.