When the 2024 Lok Sabha election process was underway, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, the eminent post-colonial literary theorist and feminist critic, was in India and had triggered a controversy during a Q&A session at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in the national capital. Spivak, based at Columbia University, is globally known and revered for her seminal work, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” in which she examines the ability of those on the margins to exert their voice and be heard.

The people of the world’s most populous democracy, including its subalterns, had, in the meantime, spoken and were heard. Only, the mandate was so fractured that it was difficult to discern what the voters of the nation had expressed.

The tallest standing leader of the ruling regime, who was seen as invincible right up to the casting of the first vote, failed to win the popular mandate and come nowhere near the much-vaunted proclamation of “Is Baar 400 Paar?” The opposition forces, mobilized through a rainbow alliance, on the other hand, failed to come anywhere near the simple majority mark with the ability to form a government. Yet, they were rejoiced by the verdict – for humbling the omnipotent leader of the ruling regime and making mincemeat of his invincibility.

What then was the message from the polity, which made the BJP the largest party with Prime Minister Narendra Modi able to return to power, with the help of allies? Did they vote for continuity or change? Were they expressing their voice of disenchantment or, instead, were they still showing their support for the incumbent and his vision, but signalling him to moderate?

The devil might still be in some details

The world’s largest electoral exercise involved 98.9 crore eligible voters though only over 65 percent of them opted to exercise their franchise. In 2019, when 91.3 crore people were eligible to vote, the country had a high 67 percent turnout, as opposed to 66 percent of the 83.4 crores who were eligible to vote in 2014.

Despite the rise in voters from the previous Lok Sabha elections, the percentage of voters who cast their ballot had conspicuously come down in the current edition. The difference in percentile, though marginal, has a wide sweep across a large populace thus making it difficult to conclude whether it represented a general disillusionment of the populace with the political environment in the country or implied the disincentive of exercising franchise in an election whose conclusion was foregone.

Accordingly, the voting patterns have been unique with peculiar outcomes that were too divergent to draw a common thread or national mood.

Whereas the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014 with a clear mandate, it swept the polls with 303 seats of its own (353 of NDA) in 2019. In 2014, the BJP garnered 31 percent vote share winning 282 seats whereas this increased to 37.36 percent vote share in 2019, the highest since 1989 when Rajiv Gandhi despite cornering 39.5 percent vote share got only 197 seats and failed to form the government on its own. Incidentally, Rajiv Gandhi-led Indian National Congress (INC) won 414 seats in 1984 and cornered 46.86 percent vote share.

Are these numbers of any significance, especially when a higher vote share may not necessarily translate into higher seats, as seen in 1989 and also in the latest instance in Bihar?

The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), despite getting the highest vote share of 22.14 percent won only in 4 of the 40 seats whereas the BJP with 20.52 percent when joining hands with 18.52 percent of Janata Dal (United) gained the upper hand with 24 seats. The significance is in the fact that the BJP’s vote share of 36.56, which is under one percent of its 2019 vote share, lost almost 63 seats and failed to cross the majority mark on its own.

The under-one percent vote share fall, however, was shaped by a major fall in both vote share and the number of seats in many crucial states while also increasing vote share in many others. For example, in 2019, the BJP won 62 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh and garnered 49.98 percent vote share whereas, in 2024, it skidded down to 33 seats and slid to 41.37 percent, even if more than 33.59 of Samajwadi Party (SP), which though won 37 seats.

On the other hand, the BJP swept the 20 (out of 21) seats in Orissa with a 45.34 percent vote share as opposed to the 8 seats with a 38 percent vote share in 2019. Riding on the same trend, the party dethroned the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) from Orissa without any inkling for the rest of the country that the 4-time chief minister Naveen Patnaik was on his way out.

Similarly, in Tamil Nadu, the BJP vote share crossed double-digit and increased to over 11.24 percent (18.38 along with NDA allies) in 2024 from the paltry 3.62 percent in 2019. In Kerala, the BJP’s vote share rose to 16.68 percent in 2024 from 13 percent in 2019, and most significantly, came first in 11 assembly constituencies, which has clear implications for the 2026 elections in the state.

The inroads in the East and South marginally echoed the predictions of Home Minister, Amit Shah, though the outcome was beyond expectations, especially in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

What then were the Indian voters trying to convey through such divergent voting patterns?  

A nation split down the middle?

The target 400 was nowhere in sight; yet the BJP made it a formidable 240 with the closest rival, the INC, barely making it to the three-digit mark. Modi, himself, quipped in his acceptance speech that the BJP has more members than the opposition alliance put together.  

What does it mean then if the ruling party scores much less than the simple majority mark, unlike in the previous two elections – 282 in 2014 and 303 in 2019 – and the opposition put together still does not muster the ruling party’s numbers? It certainly emerges as a fractured mandate, but more palpably embodies a fractured polity.

A fractured polity implies a nation split down the middle; a nation that is vertically divided in supporting or opposing anything – be it the incumbent regime, its leader, his ideas and political vision, decisions, and so on. The fractured mandate means the incumbent regime and its tallest-standing leader are neither resolutely accepted nor summarily rejected by the voting citizens as a unit or collective. It also embodies the fact that the citizenry is split in terms of acceptance of the dominant political ideology, Hindutva in this case, and the actions of PM Modi of the previous decade.

While the BJP and PM Modi can take solace in the fact that half of the electorate still backs the ideology and the PM’s governance model and style, the fact that the other half has shown their thumps down five years after re-electing him with a stupendous majority also signifies a substantial erosion of support and conspicuous disapproval.

Mixed responses to ‘400 Paar’ and democracy questions

At the core of this phenomenon might be the apprehensions created by the ‘Is baar 400 paar’ slogan. While it is argued that a fear factor was instigated by the opposition parties among many sections of the electorate of BJP making sweeping changes to the Constitution, it was also evident that many were concerned that a more powerful Modi could bulldoze many infringing legislations through the Parliament without considering the opposing voices to his rigid policy-making style.

This was not just evident in the case of the Farm laws and policies like Agnipath (which was not even presented in the Parliament), but also many other legislations like the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita to replace the Indian Penal Code, amending the Election Commission statutes as well as many other legislations that affected the privacy of citizens and further empowered the powers of the State at the cost of liberty and freedom of expression.

Another considerable half of the population, on the other hand, seems to be endorsing PM Modi’s style of politics and governance, despite criticism of being autocratic and supporting a communalization of the national ethos.

One could recall that there were considerable sections of the population who believed that the ‘Emergency’ of 1975 was good for the country as most services functioned effectively. Similarly, many ordinary citizens with whom The Polity team interacted in the last many months were of the view that efficient governance may need curbs on dissent, freedom of expression and democratic rights. Many of them pointed to the absence of popular protests (other than the Farmer strikes) and few disruptions to public life during Modi’s decade of reign as evidence of this ‘stable’ system. While many of them did not respond to queries on petrol price hikes and inflation finding little protest from the citizenry, another section felt these were ‘costs’ of progress and development the citizens have to bear.

Brand Hindutva takes a beating, but is alive and kicking

Losing Faizabad, the constituency which also houses Ayodhya, has come as a big blow to the BJP, which was hoping to gain from the Ram Temple momentum. By taking heavy losses in Uttar Pradesh, which happens to be the Hindutva pivot, and not making expected gains across the Hindi heartland, other than in Madhya Pradesh, Brand Hindutva took a big beating.

Many political analyses termed the verdict as confirming that Hindutva has a shelf life that seems to be fast eroding. The intense communalisation of the polity and public affairs since the advent of the Modi regime, which the PM reinforced in his election campaign rhetoric, seemed to be running at odds with progressive slogans like “Viksit Bharat” and “Sabke Saath Sabke Vikas.” The visible backlash at the hustings could have been an apparent reminder to the ruling regime to choose a path of moderation as also a cautionary message that ideas about progress cannot go well with the regressive campaigns.

Yet, on the other hand, the support for the ‘majoritarian’ calling was strong as seen in the split verdict.

Take the example of Delhi, where the BJP swept all the 7 Lok Sabha seats despite a formidable alliance stitched together by the AAP-INC combine. Unlike the other states in the Hindi heartland, the mood in Delhi was palpable months before the elections as the urban middle class in the capital city vigorously celebrated the consecration of the Ram Temple. When almost all housing societies and localities decked up in celebration, it was clear that the urban Hindu vote bank particularly in Delhi, Mumbai and other North Indian cities was intact even as the rural voters veered towards bread-and-butter issues.

Hindutva is seemingly finding new takers in the south and east where upper castes are seen to be embracing both the Modi juggernaut as well the majoritarian plank as a defiance against the incumbent non-BJP governments, chiefly the regional parties. This was visible along the coastal belt states from Orissa all the way up to Kerala on the western coast.

In Orissa, the BJP quickly rose as the alternative to the perennial BJD rule after voters waited for many terms hoping the Congress would emerge as an impactful opposition. In Telangana, where the Congress uprooted the Bharatiya Rashtra Samiti (BRS) from power in another shock defeat last November, the BJP has emerged as key opposition bagging 8 out of the 16 Lok Sabha seats. In Andhra Pradesh, the BJP’s growth is weighed upon how long its core ally, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) will sustain its groundswell or provide the shoulders for the BJP to grow on its back.

For, this is the phenomenon that was visible in Tamil Nadu where the BJP rode on the back of the AIADMK, as indicated by The Polity’s ground report, and is threatening to supplant the out-of-power Dravidian party as the key competitor to the ruling DMK in the 2026-2029 election season. In Kerala, as predicted by The Polity, the BJP has made a crucial breakthrough into the Christian vote bank besides significantly augmenting its acceptability among not just upper-caste Hindus but also among the Other Backward Caste (OBCs), chiefly the Ezhava community.

Smokescreen over corruption

The other significant terrain where the spilt down the middle was visible has been the question of corruption. For a substantial part of his decade-old reign, PM Modi presented himself as the messiah against corruption.

The message was sound and resolute that the Indian public refused to accost the allegations of corruption against his government on the Rafale fighter jet deal, in which 36 aircraft were alleged to have been bought for a higher price than the 126 aircraft deal agreed by the preceding UPA government, nor on the allegation of the crony capitalism favouring the Gautam Adani group. The opposition’s clamour about misuse of investigative agencies by the Modi government was also largely shrugged away by the populace which firmly believed that Modi was a crusader against corruption.

The faith was such that questions were never asked about the BJP amassing riches and supposed to be among the richest parties in the world’s prominent democracies

However, all this imagery turned turtle with the Electoral Bonds revelations, prompted by a landmark verdict of the Supreme Court. The disclosures confirmed not just the known fact that the BJP was the largest beneficiary of the Bonds scheme, floated by the Modi government in 2017, but also that donors included companies who were awarded contracts of various projects, had pending investigations by the agencies and also included loss-making companies.

Unemployment trumped?

There are some oft-repeated figures associated with India’s employment question – 2 crore jobs every year which PM Modi promised in 2014, 22 lakh government vacancies alleged by Rahul Gandhi in 2019, 10 lakh vacancies claimed to be filled by the Modi government in the Rozgar Melas of 2022-23, 30 lakh jobs promised by the Congress in government departments, 83 percent of unemployment being the youth of the country as claimed in an International Labour Organisation report.

According to the ILO report, “youth unemployment rate was an estimated 12.4 per cent in 2022, which was more than 12 times higher than the adult rate. In terms of numbers, 14.5 million young men were unemployed, compared with 4.4 million women in 2022.” The report further states that in 2022, the share of unemployed youths in the total unemployed population was 82.9 per cent whereas the share of educated youths among all unemployed people also increased to 65.7 per cent in 2022. Overall, the unemployment rate in the country was estimated at 8 percent in 2023, a year before the elections.

Even when unemployment was a raging issue in the election campaign, at the centre of public scrutiny was the Modi government policy of Agnipath which ended permanent recruitment in the armed forces and confined military service to a four-year tenure for youth aspirants. Having confirmed the existence of 10 lakh vacancies in government departments, in response to Rahul Gandhi’s number of 22 lakh vacancies, the Modi government announced the filling up of these vacancies on the same day it announced the Agnipath scheme in June 2022.

However, what followed was a unique exercise which saw PM Modi personally handing out “employment letters” through a televised event termed Rozgar Melas. While these Melas, between November 2022 and January 2024 claimed to have filled vacancies in various government departments, averaging 50,000-60,000 vacancies per Mela, the total numbers added only up to around 6 lakh jobs as opposed to claims of 10 lakh vacancies being filled.

No clear information was made available on the vacancies filled through these Melas, claimed to be vacancies filled by various governmental agencies including the Staff Selection Commission (SSC), Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), the Railway Recruitment Board (RRB), and the central police forces, among others. Interestingly, there was no reference to these Melas on the websites of these organisations. The Peoples’ Democracy alleged that these ‘appointment letters’ were largely for limited jobs involving contract and outsourced workers (said to have increased to nearly 43 percent) in recent years.

The grim unemployment situation in the country notwithstanding, there is no clear indication of how the youth of the country had voted in the Lok Sabha elections. Various reports suggest that though the youth are perturbed about the situation, PM Modi’s ‘cult status’ among the youth is seen to be intact. While it is evident that the 30-lakh job fulfilment promise of the Congress does not seem to have triggered any euphoria among the unemployed legion of youth, the young population is also seen to be incapable of examining or debating the reasons why the claimed surge in economic growth is reflecting in the job numbers.

Reports in the mainstream and social media during the election time revealed how the youth population, including students in reputed universities, were ignorant about major national issues, including the inability to name key functionaries of the state. While media reports point out that less than 40 percent of the under-20 eligible voters have registered for voting rights, Shambavi Gupta attributes the diminished electoral interest among the youth population to their disconnectedness from politics, apathy towards events of social and national relevance and lack of desire to be part of the solution.  

As a result, it is difficult to conclude whether unemployment or PM Modi’s policies that promote entrepreneurship at the cost of public employment have influenced the outcome of the 2024 elections and its fractured mandate.

Modi is still at the top, but image dented

The 2024 Lok Sabha election was never about the BJP and the opposition parties, mobilized through the I.N.D.I. Alliance. It was innately about Narendra Modi versus the rest. Yet, this was no David versus Goliath moment as Modi, despite taking on the large opposition grouping, was omnipotent and seen to be invincible.

Consequently, the question before the electorate was whether they would choose Modi or anyone from the assortment of other parties. And the verdict is fractured. By allowing the BJP to become the single largest party, with more seats than the opposition put together, Brand Modi continues to be the clear favourite, at least for half of the voting citizenry. Yet, the fact that BJP could not make it past 272 on its own, unlike in the previous two elections, and that the populace summarily rejected Modi’s ‘400 paar’ call amounts to a major setback for Modi.

As echoed throughout this analysis, if one half supports Modi as a political symbol, the other evidently rejects the ‘idea’ of Modi and his vision of politics and governance. In other words, the personality cult built around Narendra Modi, his omnipotence and omnipresence, and the way he practised politics has been rejected by at least one-half of the polity, just a few years after every word and action of his was seen as the unquestionable champion of the country’s ‘national interest’.

However, it is not just the increasing questions over his lack of ethics, honesty of intentions and ubiquitous narcissism that has led to his rejection at least among some sections of the populace but also over questions on whether the personality cult has superseded the interests of the nation. More than these questions, PM Modi was seen to have exposed himself in the 2024 electoral season through incoherent and inconsistent assertions, communal rabble-rousing, and numerous illogical statements that made him a laughing stock across social media.  

For, if Brand Modi was the sole vehicle for the BJP to run for power in 2014 and 2019, it was the same personality cult that had led to its undoing in 2024.

Veteran journalist Harish Khare explains it thus:

 “A man whom the aspirational Indians thought was a leader of maturity and sagacity turned out to be unworthy of our collective respect, leave alone reverence. He thought he had the license of his cult: that he could say anything – distort facts, fabricate history, deliberately misquote and misread others – and people will still believe him and vote for him. And, then, when he finally claimed to have had a king of non-biological birth, he came across as totally unhinged.”

Khare affirms that “a truncated prime minister is not entitled to any personality cult” and that “the first and foremost democratic task before the nation is to honour the voters’ preference and dismantle the Modi Personality Cult.”  

Whether Modi will seek to revive and promote this cult status, whether he will remain a “humble Pradhan Sevak”, or whether he will bow out in 2026 at the age of 75 by following a standard he set for others in his party are aspects that will unveil in the days and months to come.