 "Modi juggernaut crushes congress")
The number of seats won single-handedly by the party implies the next government will not be constrained by ‘coalition compulsion’, an epithet often used by the outgoing Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government to explain its inability to push through reforms or sack non-performing ministers.
According to sources, BJP has already announced internally that Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat and the party’s candidate for the top job, will take oath with a Cabinet of 12 ministers on Wednesday.
The Congress party’s tally was reduced to 44 seats in the House (final results + leads at the time of going to press), 162 short of its numbers in the 2009 elections. That its tally is less than 10 per cent of the Lok Sabha’s numerical strength also implies that the leader of Opposition from the party will not enjoy a Cabinet minister rank. There were more shocks for the Congress: Some of its top leaders like Salman Khurshid were relegated to fourth place in their constituencies and were in the danger of losing their deposits. In a brief statement, Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Vice-President Rahul Gandhi took responsibility for the defeat.
By contrast, if one were to spot a disappointment for BJP, it could be senior leader Arun Jaitley’s loss in Amritsar to the Congress’ Amarinder Singh by a margin of over 100,000 votes. BJP President Rajnath Singh, however, said Jaitley was a highly talented leader and the party would fully utilise his abilities. This indicated Jaitley, the leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha at present, might find a place in the Union Cabinet despite losing. In the past, when Jaswant Singh had lost an election, Atal Bihari Vajpayee had appointed him deputy chairman of the Planning Commission.
Markets were bouyed by the election result, which was on expected lines. As the trends started coming, the BSE Sensex rose past the 25,000 mark — for the first time ever. It surged 1,460 points in early trading to hit an all-time high of 25,376, while the National Stock Exchange’s Nifty surged to a high of 7,558. The indices, however, shed some of their gains as the day wore on, as investors booked profits after a 13 per cent rise in a week. The Sensex closed 0.90 per cent higher than its previous close to end the day at a record 24,121.7, while the Nifty closed at 7,203. The rally was also driven by foreign institutional investors, who were net-buyers to the tune of Rs 3,634.82 crore, according to provisional exchange figures.
“A strong tally in the Lok Sabha guarantees flexibility, agility and relative ease of decision making, to a reasonable extent. The conspicuous optimism is immaculately captured in the stock market reaction,” said ICICI Securities Managing Director and Chief Executive Anup Bagchi.
Banking, capital goods and realty were some of the key gainers, as investors bet on an economic recovery. Meanwhile, defensive sectors like technology, consumer stocks and health care ended with losses of between one per cent and 2.5 per cent. The total value of trades executed on the exchanges was Rs 4.87 lakh crore.
Meanwhile, Rajnath Singh, as well as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), urged BJP and its workers to show restraint and grace in victory. “By setting aside the ideological, religious and social differences, we expect the new government to create an environment where the nation stays united, there is a total social inclusiveness and no one ever feels exploited,” said RSS leader Suresh (Bhaiyyaji) Joshi.
The only discordant note was struck by BJP patriarch L K Advani, who said the people of India had voted out high prices and corruption but it remained to be studied how much of BJP’s victory was on account of Narendra Modi.
What seemed to have worked for Modi, though, was his innate ability to convert barbs and attacks to his own advantage. Manishankar Aiyar heaped scorn on him for his past as an uneducated tea seller; Modi turned the tables by defining tea sellers as an underclass and embracing them. Though caste was hardly addressed openly during the campaign, Modi converted Priyanka Gandhi’s barb about ‘neech rajneeti’ (low politics) into a caste slur, in an idiom that was deeply appreciated locally. BJP swept the eastern Uttar Pradesh constituencies that went to polls after the controversy.
Modi’s observation in interviews about visualising Muslims with a Quran in one hand and a computer in the other did not go unnoticed. And, what he hammered home repeatedly was the need for good governance — against the backdrop of ‘ineffective’ governments of regional parties like the Samajwadi Party. This helped convert ire against a state government into a clear electoral advantage for BJP.
This election was notable for the near wipeout of the Left parties in West Bengal — the Communist Party of India (Marxist) barely managed to get two seats in what was once its bastion — and a clear bias for regional parties in the states where they were in power and had shown themselves as performance-oriented. The All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), for instance, bagged 37 of Tamil Nadu’s 39 seats. Similarly, the Biju Janata Dal managed to get a lion’s share of Odisha seats, both in the Assembly and general elections. It won 20 of the state’s 21 Lok Sabha seats.
Despite the pro-Modi sentiment across the country, the Congress managed to hold its own in Kerala and Karnataka, bagging eight of 20 and nine of 28 seats, respectively. This was largely on the back of an effective state government under the party’s Oomen Chandy (Kerala) and Siddaramaiah (Karnataka).
The electorate punished both Uttar Pradesh arch rivals, the Samajwadi party and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). While the former’s tally was down to five from last election’s 23, the latter won no seat (against 21 seats in 2009).
The debutant Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) not only won four of Punjab’s 13 seats but also seemed to have damaged the Congress’ chances in as many constituencies in the state. While Delhi continued with its bellwether nature of giving most of its seats to the party coming to power at the Centre — BJP won all seven seats — Karnataka beat its trend of going against the wind. In Karnataka, which is known to vote against the party forming a government at the Centre, BJP won 17 of 28 seats.
In terms of vote share, too, BJP’s show was the best ever. The party received nearly 31.1 per cent of the total votes cast in the country — a whopping 12.3 percentage points more than 18.8 per cent in 2009. BJP’s previous best was in 1998 and 1999, when it polled 25.6 per cent and 23.8 per cent votes, respectively, to win 182 seats on both occasions.
The Congress’ vote share declined from 28 per cent in 2009 (for 206 seats won) to 19.4 per cent. But a drop of 8.6 percentage points cost the party 162 seats.
BJP’s real gains in terms of seats came from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The party, along with its allies, won over 100 of the 120 seats in these two key states.
In Uttar Pradesh, the party won 71 seats, while its ally Apna Dal bagged two. BJP’s vote share, a meagre 15 per cent in the 2012 UP Assembly election, increased to 42.3 per cent — at least six percentage points higher than its vote share at the height of the Ram Mandir movement and during the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) years of 1998 and 1999.
Though Mayawati’s BSP could not win any Lok Sabha seat, its vote share was as much as 19.6 per cent in Uttar Pradesh and 4.2 per cent — the third-most among parties — across the country. The Samajwadi Party, which won five seats, had a vote share of 22.2 per cent in the state and 3.4 per cent nationally. BJP clearly benefitted from consolidation in its favour, as well as the multi-cornered nature of contest in the state.
In Bihar, where BJP won 22 seats, its vote share was 29.4 per cent. Its ally Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) won six seats, while another ally Rashtriya Lok Samata Party bagged three. The alliance won 31 of the state’s 40 seats.
The real gains for BJP have been in some of its non-traditional areas. In West Bengal, the party won two seats, but received 16.8 per cent of the votes polled in the state. The Trinamool Congress, with 39.3 per cent votes, bagged 34 seats, while CPI(M) won two with 22.7 per cent votes.
In Assam, BJP won seven of the 14 seats, with a vote share of 36.5 per cent, while the Congress bagged three with 29.6 per cent votes. The Asom Gana Parishad was decimated at a mere 3.8 per cent vote share. In Arunachal Pradesh, the Congress and BJP shared one each of the two seats, but BJP led in vote share (45.6 per cent, against the Congress 41.7 per cent).
Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Delhi indicated, if not a ‘Modi wave’, at least an anti-Congress wave was at work. It resulted in non-Congress parties losing their marginal vote shares to BJP.
In Chhattisgarh, BJP increased its vote share between the Assembly elections in November 2013 and the Lok Sabha elections. It received 48.7 per cent votes, an increase of eight percentage points from its 2013 Assembly election. The party won 10 seats. The Congress’ vote share reduced to 38.4 per cent from 40 per cent in the Assembly election, indicating BJP received substantial non-Congress votes in the state.
In the neighbouring Madhya Pradesh, BJP’s vote share was 54.0 per cent and it won 27 of the 29 seats. The party had received 45 per cent votes in the 2013 Assembly election. The effect of a positive vote for BJP was evident in Delhi as well. The party increased its vote share from 33 per cent in the Assembly election in November to 46.4 per cent.
Gujarat was a complete sweep for BJP, with 26 seats, with a vote share of a bit over 59.1 per cent. In the neighbouring Rajasthan, it won all the 25 seats with 54.9 per cent vote share. Its share in votes cast in the state during the 2013 Assembly election was 45.17 per cent. The sweep was near-complete in Maharashtra, too. BJP won 23 seats in the state with 27.3 per cent vote share, while ally Shiv Sena bagged 18 seats (20.6 per cent votes). Together, the two parties won 41 of the 48 seats.
All seat tallies and vote shares are as at 12:30 am (final numbers for 492 seats, leads on 51)