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| Courtesy- Medium |
Year 2024 has been historic for India in many ways. India won its first ICC tournament after a gap of 11 years. India became one of the world’s fastest growing economies in the year 2024, which is also a fantastic achievement. But if there is one topic that dominated the psyche of a middle- class Indian was electoral politics. The country saw a long drawn electoral process for the Lok Sabha and various Assembly elections, which proved almost all the pollsters wrong. The country also saw some of the most remarkable assembly elections in recent history in states like Haryana, Maharashtra, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh which all threw mandates which surprised the country.
Lok Sabha Elections -
The biggest election of them all was the Lok Sabha election 2024. Though the BJP started off the campaign well with the “Abki Baar 400 Paar” slogan, it soon lost steam when due to a routine 10 year anti incumbency, voter fatigue, poor communication, multiple narratives like rural distress/caste based issues took centrestage, some poor local candidates and statements of a few BJP leaders costed PM Narendra Modi a majority. A complacent voter and cadre, costed BJP the majority, where it won 240 seats, 34 less than a simple majority. This compiled with some extremely good electoral management by parties like SP, Congress, DMK, TMC gave one of the biggest unpredicted electoral verdicts in the country. Their startegy of making the election hyper local paid off in the states of UP, TN, Haryana, Rajasthan and West Bengal. The states of Uttar Pradesh (-31), Maharashtra(-14), West Bengal(-6) and Rajasthan(-11), saw a loss of over 62 seats for the BJP, where all these factors played a crucial role. The Lok Sabha election also sprang up various surprises, like the kingmakers role to Nitish Kumar of JDU and Chandrababu Naidu of TDP, which none saw it coming, who won 16 and 12 seats respectively.
This Lok Sabha elections
again reinforced the role of the Rashtriya Syamsevak Sangh being pivotal to the
BJPs electoral agenda, along with strengthening the importance of good
candidate selection in routine anti incumbency states like Uttar Pradesh, where seats like Barabanki are high anti-incumbency seats where there have been few examples of the sitting MP again winning back their seat. The election surprisingly also reduced
the importance of Uttar Pradesh in the national politics, as this was the first
time that an alliance had formed the government in the centre without winning
majority in UP. Worse, the Samajwadi Party which won 37 seats in UP, did not
even achieve the post of leader of opposition in the country, which is
extremely rare in Indian politics.
This Lok Sabha election also underpinned the popularity of PM Narendra Modi, as it was the first time after 1962 that a politician in the country had taken oath as a PM for 3 straight times. The success of the NDA in states of North East and some degree of improved political presence in Southern Indian states, are attributed to PM Modi by most of experts & politicians. Majority of the BJP voters, again voted for Narendra Modi which is visible via the party’s vote share of 36%.The popularity of PM Modi was further reinforced as NDA won handsomely in states which has a higher urban population like Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Karnataka, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Telangana, Assam, Delhi etc. Perhaps, the only states with a high urban population which did not win handsomely was Maharashtra and Haryana, which was primarily due to intense caste-based polarization and rural distress in these states. This election restated the importance of urban- rural divide in the country, with rural economic distress being a major contributing factor which reduced the number of seats for India’s largest political party.
Assembly Elections
Post the Lok Sabha electoral results, most of the media channels had projected a positive electoral upswing for the fortunes of INC, the grand old party. UPA was buoyant with its success of winning 232 seats and a mini Congress revival of winning 99 seats in the 2024 LS elections, the most interesting part was that Congress party won substantial seats in Haryana, Rajasthan, Maharashtra where it had struggled to open its account in the previous 2 national elections. Compounding the problems for the ruling party, BJP in these states of Haryana and Maharashtra, there was a strong degree of anti incumbency in the states, deflated support base which made the Congress and the UPA have a clear edge over the NDA in both these politically crucial states.
Though Haryana, is a small state with only 90 vidhan sabha seats and 10 lok sabha seats, the state has been extremely politically active since, its formation in 1960s. It has given tall leaders like the 3 Lals, who have played a massive role in India's internal security during the period from 1970-85. Devi Lal Chautala had gone onto become the Deputy PM of the country in 1989. Its the state which is considered as one of the most vocal and patriotic states, where every Vidhan Sabha seat has a very unique history. For example- After 55 years, the Bhajanlal family of now BJP leader, Kuldeep Bishnoi, lost its "family bastion" of Adampur.
However, the biggest shock to the country and to the media came in the form of the electoral results in Haryana. The entire “mahaul” was that the Congress led by Bhupinder Hooda was winning the elections comfortably, but with some smart electoral micro management, the change in chief ministership from ML Khattar to Nayab Singh Saini and a spirited voter led the BJP to one of the most surprising electoral comebacks in recent history. The BJP shocked everyone by winning 48 seats and the Congress fumbled at 37 seats. BJP was able to increase its vote share in Haryana to 40% and form the government for third time after decades. The reason why this electoral victory was more special for the BJP was that it came in the backdrop of Agniveer protests, long-drawn farmer protests and a state unit which was looking struggling (at least superficially). The Haryana victory by BJP was even more significant because at least till 9:20 AM IST, the Congress had a decisive lead in counting and then the entire matter flipped, in a matter of 4 hours, the entire electoral mood of the nation changed in a way none expected.
Maharashtra is also one of the states which is a politically crucial state, not only due to its outsized influence in the Indian economy, but its the state which connects the mainstream North India to the Southern India, via Deccan and has multiple politically influentially cultures which have a decent degree of influence in certain parts of neighbouring states like Karnataka(specifically Belgavi, Dharwad), Telangana(specifically Nizamabad, Adilabad), MP, Gujarat(certain districts of South Gujarat), Goa, MP and Chattisgarh(certain districts of South Chattisgarh). The state has give some of the biggest political legends known to the country in the past 120 years like Dr. BR Ambedkar, Jyotiba Phule, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Veer Savarkar, Chattrapati Shahu Maharaj, Keshav Baliram Hegdewar, Balasaheb Thackeray, the Pawar family, who have a different political aura among different sections of the society in the entire country today. Even, PV Narasimha Rao was elected from Ramtek Lok Sabha once, in his long political career. The election mandate of Maharashtra definitely was on expected lines where most of opinion polls/exit polls had predicted a NDA victory, due to factors like better alliance coordination/pro - Hindu sentiment/strong local leadership/welfare schemes etc. The scale of victory was unimaginable as the state elections turned out to be one of the most one sided elections in recent history. The BJP led Mahayuti won 235/288 seats and clean swept regions of Vidarbha,West Maharashtra, North Maharashtra and Konkan. The BJP itself lodged a strike rate of 91% with the other Mahayuti partners Shiv Sena & NCP winning 57 & 41 seats respectively, with impressive strike rates of more than 70% each.
The next big comeback was perhaps by Chandrababu Naidu who returned as the CM of AP after being written off by most of the political pundits, he not only returned as the CM but became the second biggest partner in NDA after BJP. He led the NDA Kutami to a landslide win of 161/175 in Andhra Pradesh, against a politcally strong satrap in YS Jagan Mohan Reddy of YSRCP. The political relevance of Telugu states into national politics is one of the stories which has been ignored majority of the times by a larger section of the country. The states have produced Pingali Venkayya, who designed the Indian flag. The states have produced leaders like, PV Narasimha Rao, Venkaiah Naidu,NT Rama Rao,YS Rajashekara Reddy,Nara Chandrababu Naidu, Kasu Brahmanand Reddy, Marri Chenna Reddy, Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, Poti Sriramulu and Konda Ranga Reddy, who have politically influenced the country in many phases across years. The states have produced multiple home ministers for the country till date. These are perhaps the only states where every ideology in India has found takers, from sub-regionalistic ideologies, to centrist ideologies, to Hindutva ideas, communist ideologies, social justice ideas to name a few. The telugu states are perhaps the only states till date to maintain a record of electing the same alliance/party government in both center and state. These are the states, which have most of the times taken the politically perfect decision. For example - NDA won 29/42 seats in both Telugu states of Telangana & Andhra Pradesh, formed the government in 2024. In 2009, when Congress won majority of the seats, it formed the UPA govt. in the center.
Remarkable Political Stars Of The Year -
This year will perhaps be remembered as the year of comebacks by certain politicians, Devendra Fadnavis returned as the CM of Maharashtra for his third term after having an eventful 5 year term from 2019 – 24, which saw him become a CM for 3 days, a LoP for 2.5 years and a Deputy CM for 2.5 years.Nayab Singh Saini was the most underrated politician this year as he led the BJP to a win in Haryana, where seemingly most of the odds were stacked against him and BJP.
The electoral comebacks of Omar Abdullah & Hemant Soren in Jharkhand- Jammu Kashmir nearly on their own strengths also gave a lot to cheer for the cadres of these parties. The 37 seat win by Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh also proved the electoral mettle of Akhilesh Yadav. The victories by these 3 parties can also be a good case study for persons interested into politics.
This year, also saw the rapid rise of leaders like, Pawan Kalyan who after 10 years since Jana Sena’s formation, won all the seats he contested with 100% strike rate. His incredible transformation from a movie power star to become one of the biggest voices for the Hindutva cause in Southern India is one which be worth watching out for. The political rebirth of Chirag Paswan after losing his party LJP to his uncle in 2021 by winning all his allocated Lok Sabha seats, is a huge achievement. There were many more such stories in this year like BJPs victory in Odisha which ended the 24 year rule of Naveen Patnaik led Biju Janata Dal, or rise of political leaders like Jairam Mahato in Jharkhand, Rashid Engineer in J&K, a different turn in Punjab's electoral situations, rise of the Bharat Adivasi Party as a potent electoral force in Rajasthan, the influence of parties like RLD/SBSP/BVA/ MNS etc. The TMC's one sided victory in WB LS-2024 elections, are some of the topics which should be included in various case study analysis in today's day & time.
Conclusion-
To conclude, this was the year where the Indian electorate proved the conventional notions of Indian electoral politics wrong. This year will go down as one of the most significant political years which can shape the destiny of India. Overall, the year would be remembered as the one which will be most remembered by the students of political science for many years to come.
