Who won the general election in India?
- Pablo Díaz Gayoso
- Mar 3
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 24
Elections, like any competition between several options, both absolute and relative results come into play. For example, if in a soccer match Real Madrid plays against Fútbol Club Cartagena and the result is 5-4 in favor of the former it can be said that the match was won by Madrid. However, there is little doubt that the night of celebration will take place in the streets of Cartagena. A similar situation occurs in an election. If a party in government has the expectation of greatly improving the results but nevertheless ends up losing seats, even if it keeps the government, it is clear that something went wrong.
During the past month of April, May and part of June, elections were held in the most populous country in the world. In India, more than 950 million people were called to the polls to elect a new Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Indian Parliament. Because of the size of the vote, elections do not run as they do in most other countries in the world. Indian voters do not all vote on the same day but spread the voting over 7 phases.
In the general elections, 543 members of parliament are elected by a one-round majority election system in single-member constituencies, similar to the British style. This system encourages the formation of large majorities since it rewards the first party/coalition over the rest of the competitors who, if they come in second place, are left without representation.
These elections have been particularly relevant due to the formation of two large coalitions. The first one is the NDA (National Democratic Alliance) formed by 41 parties and which is the coalition headed by the BJP (Indian People's Party). The BJP is the party that has ruled India since 2014, of ultra-conservative and Hindu nationalist cut. Its candidate is the current Prime Minister Narendra Modi. On the other hand, the INDIA coalition (National Alliance for Inclusive Development of India), formed by 38 parties and headed by the Indian National Congress, the party of Mahatma Gandhi, which has ruled India for more than 60 years, was running. Its candidate is Rahul Gandhi, a descendant of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi.
The competition between the two coalitions seemed to be settled months ago, the victory of the BJP with Narendra Modi at the helm seemed assured and they were even aiming at winning 400 seats. The polls did not differ much from those figures as the latest surveys showed a tendency to win 350-380 seats, i.e. on the way to a qualified majority. On the other hand, for the INDIA coalition, the most optimistic polls placed it between 140 and 170 seats. In the end, the results broke with the trend of most polls.
The NDA coalition has gone from having expectations of being able to unilaterally change India's constitution to struggling not to lose the absolute majority at 272. The result has been even worse for the first party, the BJP, which has gone from holding 303 seats alone to 240.
The performance of the Congress-led coalition has achieved a great result considering the starting point (52 seats in 2019). The explanation for these results lies in several factors. The first is that the INDIA coalition has managed to bring together an anti-BJP front with a dozen regional parties of a wide ideological breadth that have eaten much of the cake from Modi's party in the most important constituencies. The main defeat of the BJP has occurred in Uttar Pradesh, the most populous region of India and since 2017 governed by the BJP with a very large majority. In these elections the NDA have gone from representing 62/80 seats to 36, while the INDIA coalition has obtained 44/80. The same phenomenon has occurred in Rajasthan, Maharashtra and West Bengal where in the three states combined the NDA has lost 40 seats to INDIA.
These results show that despite Modi's revalidation at the helm of India, the political attrition after a decade in government is remarkable and that the BJP may have reached its electoral peak in 2019. On the other hand the renewed opposition momentum is not without problems. The Indian National Congress results while they have been good (99), almost doubling the previous ones (52), within the coalition their position is not one of strong leadership. The good results of the coalition in Uttar Pradesh (37) have been thanks to the good performance of the Samajwadi Party, a democratic socialist party that has a strong presence in that state. The same case can be transferred to the Trinamool Congress, a Bengali nationalist party that has won 29/42 contested seats in West Bengal, which are added to 1 won by the Congress to the 30 of the INDIA coalition. Ultimately in the coalition Congress holds only 99 of the 240 won, although it is the leading party, it will find it very difficult to maintain cohesion in INDIA for the next 5 years. In a similar situation is its current leader Rahul Gandhi, who is the candidate who took the baton from Manmohan Singh (Prime Minister from 2004-2014) as leader of the Congress. Rahul Gandhi had the dubious honor of getting the worst historical results of the party in 2014 and 2019 leading the Congress to near demise.
In conclusion, the last general elections in India have been a great surprise for all political actors. On the one hand, the expectations of the Modi government were radically different from those expressed at the polls. On the other hand, the opposition has managed to break into the Lok Sabha with great force and for the first time in 10 years they have enough power to put the Hindu ultranationalist BJP regime in a tight spot.
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