New Delhi, India – Vishal Paliwal, a 57-year-old worker of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), spent Tuesday afternoon sleeping at home as India counted over 640 million votes cast in its national election.
A granite stone trader in the northwestern state of Rajasthan, Paliwal lost his livelihood after Modi announced an overnight lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic. But Paliwal stayed loyal to the BJP. In the elections that just got over, too, he could not bring himself to go out and vote for the opposition.
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Yet, a switch had flipped for him. “I could not get myself to vote for the BJP either,” said Paliwal.
By the time Paliwal woke up from his siesta, the nation had changed, too. The BJP had lost its majority, in a stunning verdict that defied exit polls, reduced to 240 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha – India’s lower house of parliament – down from the 303 it had won in 2019. It is still poised to form the next government with a clutch of regional partners under its National Democratic Alliance (NDA). But Paliwal said the drop in the party’s numbers represented a necessary course correction for the nation.
“I was delighted to see the results,” said Paliwal. “People have chosen an opposition, not a government, by voting this time. We really needed this.”
As Modi prepares to take the oath on Sunday for his third term in office, his depleted mandate could shape what India’s next government looks like, said analysts. Already, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the Janata Dal (United), the two biggest allies Modi depends on to reach the halfway mark in the Lok Sabha, are believed to have made tough demands of the BJP – from high-profile positions in the Cabinet and as speaker of the house to a common governance programme.
The BJP insists its third straight term in office will be smooth. “These are baseless, misguided fears,” Zafar Islam, BJP national spokesperson, told Al Jazeera. “Everyone in NDA has faith in the leadership of PM Modi – the way the government was run for the last 10 years, it will be the same. There is no disconnect between our partners at all.”
Yet, both the TDP and the JD(U) insist they are secular parties, and count Muslim voters among their support base. The BJP has been accused of trying to plaster over hate crimes, high unemployment, rising inflation and soaring inequality using Hindu majoritarian politics. Now, these allies, serving as key pillars holding up the government, could serve as a check on Modi, said analysts and rights activists.
“Indian voters have collectively secured that Modi will not be able to function as a dictator like the last 10 years,” said Harsh Mander, a prominent rights activist who once served as a bureaucrat. “There is no evidence he was even consulting with his cabinet before any major decision. And that’s over now, hopefully.”
‘Vote for the lesser evil’
Afreen Fatima, a 26-year-old Muslim activist, was shuttling between her home and courts trying to get her detained father Javed Mohammad released, when police officials in riot gear surrounded her home in June 2022. Mohammad had been picked up by the police over protests in their hometown, Prayagraj, in Uttar Pradesh, India’s biggest state, against anti-Islam remarks by a member of Modi’s party, which had triggered an international backlash against New Delhi.
