The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is all set to form its third consecutive Union government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi this weekend. However, the results of the Lok Sabha Elections 2024 were not on the predicted lines, with the NDA failing to cross the 300-seat mark and the BJP stopping at 240 seats – 32 short of the majority mark in the 543-member Lower House of Parliament.
The results belied all exit poll numbers that had predicted a thumping win for the NDA. The only prediction about the saffron party’s numbers that turned out to be correct was by Yogendra Yadav, the convenor of Bharat Jodo Abhiyan.
Yadav, who prefers to be introduced as a political worker instead of a psephologist, had rightly forecasted that the BJP would finish below 250 seats. Yadav, 60, had also spoken about an ‘undercurrent’ against the BJP in Uttar Pradesh. As it turned out, the BJP could win only 33 of the 80 seats in UP, as against 62 seats it had won in the 2019 general elections.
In an exclusive interview with LiveMint, Yadav spoke about factors that didn’t work for the ruling NDA, what went right for the opposition INDIA bloc and why a coalition government is good news for Indian democracy.
Edited excerpts from the interview:
Welcome to Live Mint. You were the only person who got the numbers right. How?
I am not a psephologist. I used to be one. What I did was my duty as a political activist. All I did in my capacity as a political worker was try to puncture the false narrative that was being put out before the country. And I happened to get the range almost right.
NDA is about to stake claim for the government. How do you see Modi 3.0? How is it different from previous two regimes?
Mr Modi’s victory in 2014 was a clear majority secured by any political party after three decades. In 2019, his mandate was an improvement, and the BJP crossed 300 seats. So from there, where it has come down, it’s a moral defeat for the BJP. I know, in terms of constitutional propriety, they (NDA) have the first right to stake a claim for the government.
But I am more interested in the character of the government. And I believe it would be the government without the ‘Iqbal’ of the government. Each government rules because there is a certain moral acceptance or hegemony, which is power plus legitimacy. That is what ‘Iqbal’ means. That ‘Iqbal’ was there for the past ten years, but not this time. And that is makes all the difference.
That means we are looking at a different regime. I expect to see more contestations than we witnessed in the last ten years, which is to say that Parliament will have debates and opposition will be heard better than it was before.
What are the positives of this verdict?
One, this verdict has reaffirmed the integrity of the polling and counting process. And two, BJP getting some votes in South India is good news for our democracy. Because otherwise we were kind of going towards north-south polarisation.
The BJP relies on allies like JDU and TDP in its next government. How do you see this?
The idea that coalition governments are inherently unstable is something that I don’t buy. Remember, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee led a coalition government for five years (1999-2004) that had 23 partners at one point. Coalition arrangements are in the nature of our polity.
Yes, what is to be feared, from the BJP’s point of view, is that they would not be able to steamroll everything because there is a South Indian partner-TDP–and another partner, JDU, which is ideologically not aligned to BJP‘s narrative. This are two very good checks. I think any democrat would applaud it. Checks and balances are key for a democracy.
INDIA bloc got 234 seats. How do you see this?
The performance of the INDIA bloc has to be seen not just by numbers but in context. During elections, raids by investigating agencies were being conducted on opposition leaders. Two chief ministers were arrested. Bank accounts of largest political party (Congress) were frozen. In this context, the INDIA bloc has won 234 seats. Morally, they can claim they have won this election.
I would, however, argue against complacency. I believe that the INDIA bloc could have achieved more that it did. They could have come out with a joint agenda and promises. The kind of synergy that we saw in UP in the last three phases, should have been there in other states.
The Congress has improved from 52 to 99 seats. Who do you credit?
One thing that the Congress did well was that instead of trying to mimic the BJP, they have stuck to their basic secular line. And for that, the credit should be given to Rahul Gandhi. After 2022, when everyone said Hindutva is the only spectrum by which you have to play, he refused to buy that.
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The two Bharat Jodo Yatras instilled confidence, and the second yatra oriented the Congress to its core voter base—the marginalised. However, I do not believe that Congress reaped the benefits of all these changes.
Now that the general elections are over, what is the way forward for the INDIA bloc?
There is an electoral challenge. You have Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand assembly elections in the next few months. These are opportunities for the opposition parties to hold on and defeat the BJP. Then there are Bihar and Delhi elections too, where again BJP can be defeated.
There is a political challenge of holding on to the INDIA bloc, which has seen its tensions. A lot more needs to be done to make this into a more cohesive coalition than has been so far. Above all, the real challenge is that the INDIA bloc has to align itself with the bottom of the pyramid, which is where its strength is.
Can you list some underlying trend from results?
One of the interesting things that the results show is that if you focus on votes, and not on seats, and look at the entire region except the coastal belt from Kerala and Odisha, there is a consistent decline in vote share for the BJP.
That, to my mind, is because of BJP’s politics of keeping the country in some kind of frenzy. I think people are tired of being in that abnormal state all the time. They want to come back to normal issues. They are demanding accountability and not getting answers.
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The BJP, when it faces the test of normal everyday issues of inflation, unemployment, and problems faced by farmers, does not have much to offer. Second anti-incumbency against BJP MPs. Third, there is a feeling among Dalits that the Constitution may be amended, and Muslims fear that their citizenship can be taken away. This is why BJP’s agenda kind of didn’t work.
What is the road ahead for NDA in Modi 3.0?
As I said, the BJP is used to steamrolling everything. But if the allies say that this is not done and if the presence of allies emboldens some sections within the BJP to raise questions, I think that is indeed a good news for country.
Issues like One Nation One Election are not just about changing the calendar of elections, they are about changing the constitutional structure. Therefore, these things must go through very careful process. Delimitation must go through deep political debate. So, therefore, the more issues, the better it is for democracy.