Team Blitz India
PRIME Minister Narendra Modi led the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to a historic third term in power at the Centre as the results of the General Elections 2024 were declared late in the evening on June 4.
Though his Bharatiya Janata Party fell a little short of majority on its own, it was comfortably placed to form the next government with the support of its prepoll allies – Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal United (JD-U) and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) of Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh. Belying all exit poll predictions, the Opposition INDI Alliance put up a creditable performance, particularly in Uttar Pradesh, traditionally considered key to the seat of power in New Delhi. Mamata Banerjee’s TMC and the splintered factions of Sharad Pawar’s NCP and Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena also did quite well in West Bengal and Maharashtra respectively.
Despite a surprisingly good show by the Opposition alliance, its tally was far short of the BJP’s, as was also emphasised by PM Modi in his victory speech at the party headquarters. As per the fnal numbers released by the Election Commission, the BJP secured 240 out of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats, while the Congress fell one short of 100, and the SP and the TMC won 37 and 29 seats respectively. The consolidated NDA tally stood at 293, as against the INDI Alliance’s 233.
“We are all thankful to the public for this. People of nation have reposed their faith in the BJP and the NDA, and our victory is win of the world’s biggest democracy,” PM Modi said in his speech. Regarding the signifcance of the June 4 results, he said, “It’s for the frst time post-1962 that an incumbent government has emerged victorious for the third time.”
In a post on X, PM Modi said, “People have reposed their faith in NDA for a third consecutive time. This is a historic feat in India’s history.”
Setback from UP
Although the BJP swept Madhya Pradesh, winning 29 out of 29, as in the 2019 parliamentary elections, and won 25 of 26 seats in Gujarat; its tally came down in Rajasthan and Haryana. The real setback for the safron party, however, came from the states with the highest number of seats – Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal. The party’s losses were ofset, to an extent, by Odisha, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
Odisha, Andhra wins
Apart from getting the national mandate, though in somewhat diluted form, the BJP won a resounding victory in Odisha, where it ousted Naveen Patnaik’s BJD from power after the latter’s continuous run of 25 years. The party added another state to its kitty when along with its ally TDP, it was able to end the 10-year reign of Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSRCP.
With Bihar winner Nitish Kumar arriving in New Delhi post-declaration of results, hectic consultations have begun for the formation of Modi 3.0 Government. The next few days are surely going to be exciting.
