India election: What's behind the BJP's poll upset?

"I am so happy we have stopped the BJP from winning a majority," Lata Kumar, a domestic worker in India's capital, New Delhi, told DW, referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party.    

The BJP failed to win a majority on its own in the country's parliamentary elections, final official results showed.

The party secured just 240 of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of India's parliament, down from the 282 and 303 it won in the 2014 and 2019 general elections, respectively.

The outcome means Modi will remain in office but with diminished authority, as the BJP will be forced to rely on its partners in the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition to be in power, unlike the situation after the previous two elections. 

The NDA as a whole secured 293 seats, more than the 272 needed to form a government.

Congress does better than anticipated

Meanwhile, the opposition Indian National Development Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) led by Rahul Gandhi's Congress party performed much better than anticipated, winning around 230 seats.

Congress alone won 99, almost double the 52 it won during the last general election in 2019.

"Many predicted a landslide in favor of Modi and his allies. I think the Congress will come back now," said Kumar.

"This is a party we trust," said Rajeev Sinha, an IT expert in Delhi, referring to the Congress party.

"The Congress, after being reduced to just 44 seats in 2014, is now a 99-MP party in parliament. With improved numbers, Rahul Gandhi rightfully claims legitimacy," Sinha told DW.

Results energize the opposition

Congress allies and other key constituents of the opposition alliance also fared well in their respective states. 

The Samajwadi Party (SP), for instance, won 37 seats in the northern Uttar Pradesh state in a major upset for the BJP, while the All India Trinamool Congress took 29 seats in West Bengal state, and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam won 22 seats in southern Tamil Nadu state.

The INDIA bloc also made substantial electoral gains in Rajasthan, Bihar, Haryana, and Jharkhand.

The better-than-anticipated election results for the opposition parties energized their supporters.   

"For this election, Modi had set a target of 370 seats for the BJP alone and over 400 for the NDA alliance. It has been rubbished. India has won," Pawan Khera of the Congress party told DW.

Ram Pratap Singh, the SP's political secretary, said that the BJP's "reliance on an aggreissive Hindu nationalist plank had given it electoral success in the past."

"But it has now been burst," he added.

Poor outcome in a number of states

For the first time in 15 years, Modi's party failed to win the most seats in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, which has more people than Brazil.

Uttar Pradesh sends 80 lawmakers to parliament and is viewed as a bellwether for national elections. The state is also the heartland of India's majority faith, with widespread support for Modi's Hindu-nationalist agenda.

And yet, the BJP lost nearly half its seats there, down to 33 from its 2019 tally of 62.

"The constituencies lost by the BJP include Faizabad, home to the city of Ayodhya, where Modi inaugurated a large new Hindu temple in January this year ... what a fall," said Pratap Singh, the SP politician.

Sagarika Ghose, an MP from the Trinamool Congress party, said, "obviously, the politics of hate will not hold for the BJP. It suffered so badly."

Ahead of the elections, the BJP had also attempted to gain ground in India's relatively wealthier and economically developed southern states. Voters in these states have typically supported regional parties focused on issues like social justice and welfare.

Modi made repeated tours through the south to bolster the BJP's chances, but his relentless campaigning did not result in significant electoral gains. The party failed to win a single seat in Tamil Nadu state, which has around 80 million people, and won just one constituency in neighboring Kerala, with a population of 35 million.

Outcome weakens Modi's position

Gilles Verniers, a political scientist and senior fellow at the Center for Policy Research, a think tank, said the results challenge the perception of Modi's invincibility and highlight the importance of state dynamics in elections.

"This was the most openly communal and aggressive national campaign of Modi, who used veiled invective against the Muslim community," he told DW, adding that the outcome is a "rejection of the politics of hate. It shows that communalism is insufficient to win an election."

Critics also accused Modi of undermining India's democracy and constitutional institutions, as well as attempting to subdue political opponents and quash dissent. The BJP has rejected such accusations.

Opposition parties attacked Modi not only over its Hindu nationalist politics, but also campaigned on issues like joblessness, rising inflation and inequality.

Verniers said economic distress and public discontent with the unemployment crisis played a key role in the election outcome.

Arun Kumar, an economist, shared a similar view. All these economic issues helped "mobilize the public" against the BJP, he said.

Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru