Prime Minister Narendra Modi won a third term in power on June 4, but he will be dependent on allies as the BJP fell 32 short of the halfway mark of 272 seats in the Lok Sabha. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won 286 seats against the Congress-led INDIA bloc’s 231 seats. The Congress won 99 seats compared to 52 in 2019. The BJP won 240 seats.
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The BJP faced setbacks in strongholds and ended up with lower tallies in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, while its southern foray came a cropper and its hopes of expanding in West Bengal were dashed. Odisha went according to the BJP’s script where it won power for the first time and posted 19 out of 21 Lok Sabha seats. The Congress’s unprecedented outreach to OBC voters in alliance with the Samajwadi Party paid rich dividends in Uttar Pradesh, where the alliance won 44 seats, bringing the BJP tally down to 35 from its earlier tally of 62 seats in 2019, in the battleground State. In Bihar, the Congress-RJD alliance on the same plank failed to enthuse the voters and the NDA alliance held its own.
The nature of the verdict points to a situation where the BJP, while dominating in numbers over the NDA, will have to pursue a more consensual approach as the numbers secured by its allies are what have pushed the alliance above the half-way mark in the Lok Sabha. A meeting of the NDA has been scheduled for Wednesday, with the two biggest NDA allies, TDP and JD(U), having confirmed their attendance. The INDIA bloc of parties will also be having their meeting in New Delhi on Wednesday.
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