As the Lok Sabha elections head into its final phase, the scenarios that stood tall in the run-up to the elections before the first phase on April 19th have drastically changed by the time of the final phase on June 1st. What was deemed to be a sure-short victory in the run-up months with a clarion call for “400-paar” by the National Democratic Front (NDA) under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is now poised to be a close race as the countdown to the finale begins.

To start with, the low voter turnouts, followed by contested reversed estimates of the Election Commission of India (ECI), were widely seen as an indication of an unpredicted anti-incumbency wave gaining traction. A late resurgence of the opposition I.N.D.I Alliance led by the Indian National Congress (INC) also created undercurrents with the alliance partners seemingly making inroads with their combined strength in many states.

To top it all, the response from the lead campaigner, the prime minister himself, marked by communal rabble-rousing and followed up by numerous startling, illogical and factually inaccurate statements, betrayed signs of self-doubt and desperation in the ruling camp.

What is in store for the nation on fateful Tuesday, June 4th? Will it be a historic third term for Narendra Modi or will it be yet another landmark verdict wherein a popular ruling leader is dethroned by an invisible anti-incumbency wave, or one which the leader and his party failed to comprehend and endorse?

The BJP leadership officially continues to espouse confidence of ‘400 Paar’. However, leaders in New Delhi who spoke to The Polity privately accepted the possibility of a truncated mandate hovering around the 300+ mark. The I.N.D.I Alliance, on the other hand, does not have resolute numbers to talk about but is hopeful of crossing the 272 barrier.

While PM Modi’s re-election could mean continuity and a vigorous pursuit of remaining core political projects like One Nation One Election (ONOE) and the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), it will need a stretch of imagination to aver the outcome of a ‘disempowered’ Modi government tottering with a simple majority.

However, a more urgent imagination project is understanding what it means if the NDA does not garner 272+ and I.N.D.I Alliance manages to form the next government. A related question, relevant to this eventuality, is what it means when Narendra Modi is out of power for the first time since assuming charge as Chief Minister of Gujarat on 7th October 2001, which he ran for 12 years and 227 days before becoming the prime minister for the next one decade.  

What if the I.N.D.I Alliance forms the government?

Uprooting Modi from power could be euphoric for opposition forces, which, though, could turn into chaos when the I.N.D.I Alliance members gather to form a coalition government. In fact, opposition leaders have proclaimed that a government will be ready in 48 hours. That could be easier said than done considering the disjointed character of the alliance with numerous personalities could push any political architecture into disarray.

Who will be the Prime Minister: Hold your breath! It might not be Rahul Gandhi going by the discordant voices already expressed by the likes of Arvind Kejriwal and Mamata Banerjee over the younger Gandhi scion leading the Alliance, even though he was its lead campaigner.

Kejriwal had already proposed the name of INC President Mallikarjun Kharge as the potential prime minister. Kharge, with his Dalit credentials, is likely to find greater acceptance among the I.N.D.I Alliance partners. However, if the Congress gains a considerable number of seats (150+) which provides it with a formidable numero uno position in the Alliance, the INC leadership may then push for Rahul Gandhi as the head of the government.

The 30+ bargainers: Needless to say, the governmental dynamics will be determined by the number of seats the other Alliance partners manage to garner as opposed to the INC’s final numbers. For example, the Samajwadi Party (SP) is contesting 62 seats in Uttar Pradesh while Mamata Banerjee’s All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) is contesting all 42 seats in West Bengal. While the AITC won 22 seats in 2019, the SP managed only 5 seats in its kitty.

Much will be at stake in the I.N.D.I Alliance government if both the AITC and SP manage to win over 30 seats and could be matched by 30+ performance by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), which makes them formidable partners with significant bargaining power in Alliance and the coalition government. The Rashtriya Janta Dal (RJD), contesting in 23 seats in Bihar, will be able to exert influence only if it manages at least 15-20 seats failing which it will seek to tag along with the INC. 

One can easily recall the situation of 2004-2009 when the Left parties led by the CPM was not just a power bloc in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government headed by Dr Manmohan Singh but also called the shots in the UPA set up which led to numerous political crises. With the kind of temperament leaders like Mamta Banerjee are infamous for and with the history of political bargaining that SP had in the Mulayam Singh Yadav years, the I.N.D.I Alliance government is destined for a rocky journey.

If the I.N.D.I Alliance proves to be a dissonant and discordant coalition with internal strife causing instability, it will inevitably lead to desertions and cross-overs that will end up in mid-terms polls. Such a condition, indisputably, will favour Modi who will not just be on a strong footing with his ‘stability’ plank` but also will justify his centralized control over the entire nation and its way of life.

A Union Cabinet full of possibilities: Assuming Banerjee will be sticking to her word of supporting the I.N.D.I.A bloc “from outside,” and maintaining the same posture for the coalition government as well, it could be then reasonable to imagine some top portfolios to be filled in this manner: Akhilesh Yadav (Home Minister), P. Chidambaram (Finance, unless the INC will like to bring in Raghuram Rajan for the post for a Manmohan Singh encore of 1991), Kanimozhi (Defence Minister or Human Resources Development and included in the Cabinet Committee on Security), Shashi Tharoor as the Foreign Minister (irrespective of whether he wins in Thiruvananthapuram), and so on. There could also be Misa Bharati of RJD adding to the youth-cum-women strength in a potential I.N.D.I Alliance cabinet. 

While INC old-timers like Anand Sharma, Manish Tewari, Jairam Ramesh and K.C. Venugopal could be in contention for top ministerial berths, it will be unsurprising if even Kapil Sibal makes an entry as Law Minister, on the SP and TMC’s push. Though Rahul Gandhi is unlikely to make it to the Cabinet sans the premiership, Priyanka Gandhi might be having a ministerial entry if not pushed to take over the party stewardship in the event Kharge takes over as the Prime Minister.

The prospects of leaders like Supriya Sule (NCP) or any leader from the Shiv Seva (Uddhav Thackeray or UBT faction) depend upon the number of seats the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) will romp home in Maharashtra. However, considering that Shiv Sena (UBT) is contesting in only 21 seats and NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) in only 10, even a successful show in the state will not give both parties that kind of leverage the 30+ partners could potentially have. 

The fence-sitters and the trouble they can brew: Mamta Banerjee remains at the top as the potential spoiler of the I.N.D.I. Alliance be it as an ‘outside supporter’ or a coalition partner with a 30+ membership. If AITC joins the government, Banerjee is likely to nominate her nephew to a top ministerial slot, alongside the likes of Derek O Brien and Mahua Moitra, while continuing to reign from Kolkata. Banerjee’s ‘outside support’, on the other hand, could be a recipe for disaster for the Alliance and its coalition government.

Kejriwal is not merely a potential spoiler but a confirmed one with his declaration that his alliance with the INC is not permanent. Accordingly, the first major political crisis for the I.N.D.I Alliance, if in power, will be in 2025 when the Delhi assembly polls are due. With the INC drawing a blank in 2020, there is very little prospect of Kejriwal agreeing to an AAP-INC alliance in Delhi unless the AAP, even with its likely limited number of Lok Sabha seats, is allowed to play a notable role in the I.N.D.I Alliance government at the centre.

The history of partnerships and splits between INC and SP apart, including the recent spat over seats in Madhya Pradesh during the 2023 assembly elections, the Akhilesh-Rahul camaraderie looks intact at the moment and could carry into the 2027 assembly elections unless the dynamics turn unfavourable within the coalition government. The same applies to the DMK-INC dynamics as well, which is going steady and smooth notwithstanding intense acrimony for many years, flowing from the Rajiv Gandhi assassination. The RJD, for its part, has a cosy relationshp with the INC, which is likely to be intact whether in power or not.

Reference to the Left parties, who played the domineering role in 2004, is limited due to the considerable depletion of their strength in the Indian political scene since the exit from the UPA. But for a handful of seats in Kerala and possibly a few other states, the Left parties are unlikely to make any significant influence in a potential I.N.D.I Alliance government. However, considering that Left leaders like Sitaram Yechury and D Raja played crucial roles in the formation of the opposition alliance, their desire to play kingmakers or facilitators could not be ruled out in the event of a 2004 repeat on June 4th.

Can I.N.D.I Alliance give a stable government?

Besides the expectant chaos from a coalition government with many ‘power centres’, unlike the single-point authority appropriated by Narendra Modi, there are many other push and pull factors that could cause instability for the I.N.D.I Alliance government which could be riven by competing political interests as well as contestations in the states. However, the key exogenous factors that could prove to be a formidable challenge to the stable functioning of the Alliance are ones deeply embedded in the Indian socio-political psyche a decade of Modi’s reign.

Dismantling the Hindutva eco-system: The most significant imprint of Narendra Modi’s decade as prime minister is the extensive nesting of the Hindutva eco-system in not just the political system but also in the socio-cultural psyche of the nation. Such has been the deep-rooted influx and infiltration of the Hindutva way of thought, aided by a resource-rich propaganda machinery, that no walk of life in the nation has been spared from the unrelenting permeation of this ideology.

While terming this eco-system as a Frankenstein monster – akin to the Islamisation seeded by Gen Zia-ul-Haq in the Pakistan of 1970s – could seem far-fetched, the Hindutva socio-political apparatus has invariably grown into an octopus that has its tentacles reaching out of all sections of the Indian society as well as the governance apparatus.

The ability of the I.N.D.I Alliance government to provide stable governance, hence, will be under constant stress with dissent likely to be orchestrated by the Hindutva organisations as a constant and put the much-lamented democratic credentials of the Congress and its allies to test. It will be relevant to recall the Anna Hazare agitation of the UPA years, which was alleged to have been conceived at a think tank backed by the Sangh Parivar.

Though the Congress may seek to balance with a ‘soft Hindutva’ approach, the return to a pre-2014 ‘secular’ order will be difficult, if not improbable, in the light of the challenge and disruption caused by the grand Hindutva machinery. Equally challenging it will be to purge and cleanse the governmental system, in particular the security apparatus, from its deep-rooted vestiges of the Modi-cum-Hindutva reign, thoroughly anchored by the likes of National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and PM’s aides Nipendra Misra and P.K. Mishra over the past decade.

The right-wing media and propaganda machinery: While the all-pervasive social media in the country has witnessed in recent months a widespread redemption of space by the ‘secular’ and ‘liberal’ voices, the functional depth and influence of the Hindutva propaganda machinery, particularly the leverage of the BJP IT cell, remains formidable and could be the foremost challenge for the I.N.D.I Alliance government’s public perception management.  

The troublesome part, however, will be the pro-Modi and right-wing media, caustically termed as ‘Godi media’ by detractors, which could be at the forefront of belligerent reportage that was unseen during the past decade. The mainstream media, which was put on a tight leash by the Modi government, on the other hand, will seek to revive its pre-2014 glory assuming the I.N.D.I Alliance will fulfil its slogans of enabling free media and freedom of expression and dissent.

How the government-media dynamics will turn out under this dispensation will depend on whether the Alliance seeks to emulate the curbs followed by the Modi regime and also whether the mainstream returns to some levels of reckless journalism driven by the urges of breaking news and investigative reportage. 

Will Modi gracefully accept defeat?   

The next big ‘what-if’ question if the NDA fails to cross the 272 mark is whether PM Modi will gracefully accept defeat or seek to topple the mandate. Though no such scenarios are currently being discussed thanks to the confidence of the ruling front to romp home comfortably, there is little scope to envision extreme scenarios as Modi has a proven record of taking electoral setbacks in his stride, which was evident on numerous occasions during his first two tenures as the prime minister.

Yet, the idea that he will not accept the defeat easily is driven by his recent history of toppling many state governments allegedly using inducements, cajoling and threats. Assuming the BJP will be the largest party in the Lok Sabha even if not able to form the government, the impulse to topple the I.N.D.I Alliance and squeeze-out coalition partners will be dominant.

Narendra Modi has never been in the opposition ever since coming to power as the Chief Minister of Gujarat on 7th October 2001. He has been in office for a continuous 22 years without any break – a condition which prods questions on whether he will accept defeat and be ready to be the Leader of the Opposition.

Also weighing against Modi is the fact that the BJP and NDA are heavily reliant solely on him for victory. Considering the fact that the nomenclature has shifted from BJP or NDA government to the Modi government, which the prime minister himself copiously refers to – the onus of defeat will solely lie with the tallest standing leader unless, of course, the party decides to take collective responsibility for any such failure.

The possibility of dissension, as witnessed against L.K. Advani following the 2009 debacle, cannot be ruled out though considered too premature at this point in time.

What if Modi 3.0 happens short of 300 seats?

Despite the inroads made by the I.N.D.I Alliance, it is widely felt that NDA will manage to cross the magic figure of 272 and form the next government. However, running a government without at least 300 seats on board will amount to a ‘disempowered’ Modi not finding enough teeth to push forward his radical measures.

Top on his agenda are declared plans like One Nation One Election (ONOE) and the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) which may need at least a two-thirds majority in both houses in order to enable the requisite constitutional amendments. Measures like the National Register of Citizens (NRC) that were expected to follow the Citizenship Amendment Act (Act), the delimitation exercise which is essential to implement legislations like the Women’s Reservation Act and also has bearing on the ONOE, also will have their destinies shaped by the nature of parliamentary strength.

While a strengthened opposition could make it difficult for measures like the NRC and UCC to be passed in the parliament, the delimitation exercise is likely to run into trouble with the southern states opposing more seats to the Hindi heartland states which had failed to curb population growth.

Adding to any slide in the parliamentary leverage will be the pressure Modi could face when he turns 75 in 2026. Having set the 75-year benchmark for others to retire from active politics, Modi is destined to face the question especially if he no longer holds the power and influence as in the previous two tenures. Whether he will manage to hold on or hand over to a chosen successor – be it Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath or even possibly S Jaishankar – will depend on not just the parliamentary strength but also whether Modi will prefer to continue as an ordinary MP, take political Vanavas or seek other options like the Presidential office.  

Needless to say, the fate of these questions will be decided not then, but on June 4th, which will certainly be the most decisive election in recent times. For, if Modi manages a 350+ score or 400+, he will remain invincible and reshape the fate and future course of the nation which will be completely different from its pre-2014 years.