Modi Wave Strikes, Again
BJP-led NDA gets re-elected with a bigger mandate
For a man dubbed on election eve as Divider-in-Chief by Time magazine, Narendra Modi had the last laugh on Counting Day. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won on 342 of the 542 seats with the BJP comfortably crossing the 303-mark, setting a higher record that its 2014 win.
Here are a few key highlights from the elections, which scripted history.
- The opposition has seemed to crumble in the face of the saffron stand, with the Congress managing a measly 52 seats – four short of the mark needed for Leader of Opposition status. That’s not all; the party was dealt another major blow in its pocket borough – Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi, where chief Rahul Gandhi was contesting. Gandhi’s rival on the seat – Smriti Irani- clinched victory with a margin of over 50,000 votes. Hours before the results were declared, a disheartened Rahul, who won from his second seat in Wayanad, conceded defeat. The big question now is if he will resign from his position as the party chief?
- Battleground West Bengal was BJP’s second milestone of the day. From two seats in 2014, the saffron party claimed a haul of a whopping 18 seats. The Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress, which had fought tooth-and-nail to prevent its rivals from making inroads into the state, managed only 23 seats. A host of factors has helped the unimaginable rise of the BJP in the state, which has earlier seen a 34-year-long Left Front rule.
- In Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, where the ruling governments rose to power after defeating the BJP in recent Assembly polls, the saffron party successfully struck back. The months leading up to the Lok Sabha elections in Karnataka was marked by severe infighting and alleged “poaching" by the rival BJP camp. This seems to have turned the tables for the party, which has now clinched victory on 25 of the state’s 28 states. The Congress-JDS alliance managed a paltry two seats. Is this the end of the ruling coalition? A similar story panned out in Madhya Pradesh, which saw the Congress winning a lone seat from Chhindwara.
- In Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party-Rashtriya Lok Dal faced a drubbing at the hands of the BJP, despite striking near magical caste arithmetic. Brand Modi has overrode their strategy of bringing together the 40 percent OBCs and 21 percent Dalits in the state. How did the saffron party get ahead of the near-perfect arithmetic?
- These elections have sounded the death knell for the left parties in India. From its bastion state of Kerala to West Bengal , the Left Front failed to even come close to double digits, a first since 1952. In fact, in West Bengal, all but one Left Front candidate are facing the ignominy of losing their security deposits.
The Day in Illustrations
Rahul Gandhi conceded defeat to Smriti Irani on his seat in Amethi even before the counting was over.
The resounding NDA victory in Bihar, at the centre of which was alliance partners Narendra Modi, was a rejection of caste-based politics.
All Eyes on Them
Here's how some of the keenly-watched candidates fared.
For the first time in the country's history, a terror accused candidate clinched victory. Not only did Pragya Thakur manage a win over Congress stalwart Digvijaya Singh in Bhopal, but she also claimed a huge margin of 3,64,822 votes.
In another surprising turn of events, AAP's East Delhi candidate Atishi was dealt a major blow as she came in third after BJP's Gautam Gambhir and Congress' Arvinder Singh Lovely.
Former PM and JD(S) chief HD Deve Gowda and his grandson Nikhil Kumaraswamy suffered a humiliating defeat in Tumkur and Mandya (respectively). Nikhil lost to BJP-backed Sumalatha Ambareesh.
Begusarai's "son of soil" candidate Kanhaiya Kumar, who ran a formidable campaign for the CPI, was trounced by the incumbent BJP MP Giriraj Singh by an astounding 4.2 lakh votes.
Agree or Disagree?
The Indian voter has opted for stability and continuity and most of all, for Modi. It's TsuNaMo 2.0. The invisible, silent, all-pervasive Modi wave engulfed the Hindi heartland, the West, East and South. The verdict renders him virtually challenge-proof and alters, irrevocably, the terms of engagement between the Indian political right and the world, writes Bhavdeep Kang.
Rasheed Kidwai writes that from the Congress perspective, the outcome of the 2019 Lok Sabha election has one villain – Rahul Gandhi. From day one, Rahul appeared every bit a misfit, a reluctant leader who lacked hunger for power and an upper hand within the grand old party. More, here.
On Reel
In his victory speech, the Prime Minister said that the NDA tally of over 350 seats was the biggest event in the history of democracy worldwide. He reiterated that the BJP will remain committed to the Constitution and the spirit of federalism.
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