A shock election result in India humbles Narendra Modi
Instead of strongman rule an uncertain era of coalition government beckons
photograph: getty images
|delhi
Ahead of the general election that concluded on June 1st Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, was expected to romp home. His charisma, combined with an emphasis on infrastructure development, welfare payments to the poorest and a polarising Hindu nationalism, looked unbeatable. Mr Modi exuded a confidence that matched those predictions. He claimed that his Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp) and its allies would win upwards of 400 seats in the 543-seat parliament.
Early results from the vote count on June 4th appeared to put that target out of reach. After more than 50% of the votes had been counted, Mr Modi’s alliance still looked headed for victory, with the bjp and its allies ahead in 290 seats, compared with the opposition’s 235. Yet the bjp itself appeared to be on course to lose more than 60 seats compared with the last election in 2019, with results mid-afternoon putting its tally at 238, down from 303 in 2019. Crucially, that means that it will rely on its alliance partners to control parliament (272 seats are needed for a majority). Final results are expected late on Tuesday or early on Wednesday. The spectacle of the Modi machine faltering has shocked the public, the political world and financial markets: the country’s benchmark share index fell by 6%.
Early results suggest Modi’s BJP will win, but not by a landslide
Last updated on June 4th 2024 at 4.07pm
Seats in Lok Sabha 2024, won or leading
BJP
Allies
Congress
Allies
Other
BJP + allies
140 won 153 leading
272 for majorityCongress + allies
97 won 136 leading
352201991
335201459
After a mammoth election, vote counting began in India’s 543 constituencies on the morning of Tuesday June 4th local time. To form a government, a party or alliance needs to win 272 seats. Last time, in 2019, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Narendra Modi, and its allies swept to victory with 353 of 543 seats in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the national parliament. This time around, they are aiming even higher: 400 seats. Exit polls suggested they would come close. But the early count is pointing to a much less resounding triumph, and a humbling for Mr Modi. On this page, you can track the results as they come in. The chart above shows the tentative seat count by party. (It includes seats in which a party is currently leading.) The map at the bottom of this page will be updated with the result in each seat once it is declared.
If you are interested in contests elsewhere, see our Trump/Biden poll tracker, our British election tracker and more at our election tracker hub.
Indian elections take place over seven phases. They are staggered, such that a week or so passes between each round, and scattered all over the country, in a splotchy-looking map that the Election Commission of India has calibrated carefully. And no one will know who won any given seat until the results are announced on June 4th. Why draw out the voting like this? Getting from one part of the country to another takes time; some of India’s more than 1m polling stations are still extremely remote. A roving company of administrators, backed up by an enormous number of police and paramilitary forces, try to ensure a free and fair election. In wilder times the Election Commission was chiefly concerned with protecting ballot boxes from being stuffed or stolen, or candidates kidnapped. Today it is more focused on organising a fair and well-publicised vote.
Indian election 2024, voting phases
Apr 14th
May 7th
26th
13th
25th
Jun 1st
May 20th
Ahead of the election, the outcome was in little doubt: Mr Modi’s BJP was strongly favoured to return to power. Over the past 40 years, when the party first contested an election, it has come to dominate national politics. Just as striking as the BJP’s rise is Congress’s fall. The only previous time a party has broken the 400-seat mark in the Lok Sabha was in 1984, when Congress was propelled by a wave of sympathy after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, the prime minister, in October that year. That helped it win nearly half of the vote. This year it may struggle to win more than a fifth. To put up a stronger fight, it has teamed up with more than 30 other parties in the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA).
For the opposition, the proposition of toppling the BJP may seem daunting. The ruling party’s strongholds are the north and west, India’s Hindi-speaking heartlands, where its Hindu-nationalist populism has proven popular. The approach has had far less resonance in the richer south, where the BJP has struggled against stronger regional competitors. There is also more hope for the opposition at the state level. The BJP holds only around a third of India’s more than 4,000 state assembly seats. It has suffered defeats to smaller, regional parties, including in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, which have also gone to the polls in the past month.
We will populate the map below with the latest results, seat by seat, once they are declared.
Winning party in each seat
BJP
Allies
Congress
Allies
Other
No result
Sources: Election Commission of India; Trivedi Centre for Political Data; The Economist
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