Reuters: India election results 2024

India election results 2024

Results of the six-week-long election to the lower house of India’s Parliament started pouring in Tuesday morning

Published June 4, 2024 

Last updated 18:40 BST Reuters

Results of the Indian general elections were out on Tuesday with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), winning a majority, even if their seat tally reduced significantly compared to the 2019 elections.

Counting of over 640 million votes that were cast in the 2024 Indian general elections began early on Tuesday. The polling to elect 543 members of the Lok Sabha, lower house of the Indian parliament, concluded on June 1.

The ruling BJP along with its allies was competing for a third term under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership. The Indian National Congress (INC), which has the second largest national footprint after the BJP, helped stitch a new coalition called the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) last year, hoping to wrest power from Modi through a united opposition.

Elections were held in seven phases in constituencies spread across 36 states and federal territories.

The BJP seized power from the Congress and its allies with a decisive victory in 2014, marking the first time in three decades that a single party achieved a majority of its own. Its strength increased in the subsequent 2019 election. However, the party did not end up with enough seats this year to form a majority by itself.

Its previous victories had come from the more populous northern and western parts of India. It lost some of that turf to the Congress-led alliance this year.

India's political landscape has significantly evolved over time. Until three decades ago, the Congress was the dominant force. However, the BJP began gaining substantial electoral strength and emerged as the leading party. Its wins in the 2014 and 2019 elections relegated Congress to historically low levels of influence, winning less than 10% of the seats each time. This year, however, the Congress almost doubled its tally.

A

All major exit polls had predicted a historic victory for the BJP, anticipating its best performance to date.⍐

Note

Some allies of BJP and INC have changed between 2019 and 2024.

Sources

Election Commission of India; Trivedi Centre for Political Data; DataMeet; Natural Earth

Edited by

Simon Scarr, Anand Katakam and Raju Gopalakrishnan

Modi’s party may need junior partners to form a government.

 

A worker carrying a sign showing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India outside his party headquarters in New Delhi on Tuesday 04-06-2024.Credit...Dinesh Joshi/Associated Press

பின்னிணைப்பு

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party will likely need help from junior partners to form a government under the rules of India’s parliamentary system, early election results indicated on Tuesday.

In a 2019 election that handed Mr. Modi a second consecutive term, his Bharatiya Janata Party won 303 of the 543 seats in Parliament. That was well over the 272 seats it needed to rule on its own.

This time, exit polls released over the weekend suggested that the B.J.P. would once again easily win more than 272 seats. But as of early Tuesday afternoon, official voting results indicated that it would win about 240 seats instead.

Winning that much support — 44 percent of the seats in Parliament’s lower house — is an impressive feat in India or any other country. And the new math should not prevent Mr. Modi from securing a third consecutive term as prime minister.

But the dip in the B.J.P.’s electoral support, far short of Mr. Modi’s goal and his last electoral performance, will likely have political ramifications.

At a minimum, the B.J.P. will have to depend more on the junior members of its existing multiparty alliance. Two of the most prominent parties do not share Mr. Modi’s Hindu-first agenda.

And if the governing alliance does not win a majority, the B.J.P. will be able to form a government only by adding new partners.

It may not come to that. As of Tuesday afternoon the alliance was on track to scrape by with a narrow parliamentary majority — far short of its target of 400 seats, but enough to stay in power with its existing members⍐.

June 4, 2024, 4:54 a.m. ETJune 4, 2024

June 4, 2024

Hari Kumar, Mujib Mashal and Mike Ives New York Times