These questions must be arising in your mind due to the Lok Sabha election results, know the answers to all of them

New Delhi: The BJP fell short of a majority but emerged as the single largest party by a small margin. What voters were saying. What is the message behind the Rahul Gandhi-led Congress regaining its shine. How can a Narendra Modi government running an economy growing at 8.2% afford electoral defeat? TOI draws key conclusions from an election that exit pollsters were running away from.

Nothing shines forever, not even Brand Modi
Modi led the entire BJP election campaign. No political brand is immune to voter scrutiny. Not even Modi. The credit for BJP’s rising vote share since 2014 was rightly given to Modi. The decline in its vote share must also mean that brand Modi has lost some sheen. There is no doubt that he/she is still a leader who enjoys substantial support. But, there is no doubt that this support was not enough to take the BJP across the winning line at a time when voters had many questions for the Modi government. Talking of growth rates when jobs are low or India’s position in the world when rural incomes and consumption are low – Modi’s keynote speeches were seen by many voters as being out of touch with reality. The best example of this was seen in UP. The state Modi made his/her political home gave the BJP its biggest jolt. Now that Modi runs a coalition government, which will largely depend on unstable allies like Nitish Kumar and Chandrababu Naidu, India has seen a different kind of Modi. Now it remains to be seen whether India will see a different kind of Modi?

‘Pappu’ and ‘Shehzada’… the public listened
Having been dismissed many times since 2014 – often called ‘Pappu’ and ‘Shehzada’ – Rahul Gandhi still refused to listen to party insiders who advised him/her to take a less aggressive stance. he/she doubled down and inspired other India Alliance partners to attack Modi. he/she stuck to a theme that emphasised the bread and butter issues of the common voter. The two Bharat Jodo Yatras were built around these themes, and Rahul reiterated them in rallies one after another. he/she correctly gauged that there was a large number of voters who were receptive to his/her message – even in Modi strongholds like UP. Much to Rahul’s credit, the Congress has returned as a strong player in UP. However, Rahul has a long way to go to reach a position where he/she can directly challenge the BJP in UP.

When there is no wave, politics becomes local
Political pundits say that one cannot catch an electoral wave when it is underway, all recognition is in retrospect. But this time, for observers on the ground, it was clear that there was no Modi wave, not even in Uttar Pradesh. When national issues do not attract the masses, local concerns dominate voters’ thinking. The caste angle comes into play again. Livelihood concerns become paramount, candidate selection becomes very important – in short, politics is back to the little things that affect voters, not some abstract big idea that excites them.

Who is the boss of India Alliance? Obviously, King Congress
When the India Alliance was formed, a stalwart like Mamata was skeptical that the Congress could lead the opposition. There were other big leaders in the alliance, Sharad Pawar, Uddhav Thackeray, Akhilesh Yadav, MK Stalin, all of them saw the Congress not as a leader but as a party that had lost badly in two Lok Sabha elections. But it was also true that for the BJP to stay away from a majority, the Congress had to perform much better. So, the grand old party has always been the key player in India Alliance. Now that the Congress has almost touched the three-digit mark in the Lok Sabha with a stellar performance in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, there is no question as to who will lead the India Alliance. The opposition regional stalwarts now need the Congress to lead the future battle against the BJP in Parliament and elections.

Majority cannot be achieved by intimidating the majority
The ruling party made several attempts to polarise voters through multiple messages in rallies or on social media. As the BJP said, the Congress would open the cash coffers for minorities and Hindus would suffer. It did not work in UP, where polarisation has been a tried and tested strategy. Nor in Bengal, where the BJP was capitalising on what it saw as Hindu voters’ resentment over Mamata Banerjee’s ‘Muslim appeasement’. It did not work in Karnataka, where there are several hardline Hindu right-wing politicians. Or in Rajasthan, where there have been several communal clashes.

The Muslim vote has become completely united
The BJP and everyone else knew that the Muslim vote would go against it. The party perhaps did not anticipate that Muslims would vote in a way that would make the difference in the BJP winning and losing seats, as happened in UP, where the Congress-SP alliance benefited greatly. In Bengal, with Muslims standing firmly with Mamata, the Trinamool may focus on keeping its non-Muslim vote bank as intact as possible. The BJP’s reduced seats in both states compared to 2019 shows that marginalising minorities can be a risky strategy when other negative factors are also at play.

Do not talk about tampering with the constitution
Soon after the election campaign began, the BJP began assuring voters that it had no plans to change the Constitution or tinker with reservations. It was forced to do so because of the successful campaign by the opposition, which took advantage of statements by some BJP leaders that crossing 400 would give the party a chance to reshape the Constitution. The Be It India campaign, which centered on the theme that the BJP wants to do away with SC/ST reservations, clearly worked, as the results show, especially in UP. The social coalition carefully built by the BJP in the state fell apart as a large number of Dalits took the ‘threat’ to quotas seriously. The BJP tried to change the game by talking about Congress’ ‘plans’ to do away with SC/OBC quotas for Muslims. But it did not work.

BJP had to pay the price for this
In a country where income and wealth inequality is very high, a booming economy should create enough jobs to positively impact the realities of most citizens’ lives. That this was not happening was clear even from government data. Almost every ground report from constituencies, especially in large states like UP and Maharashtra, reflected the anguish of unemployed youth. In Haryana and Punjab, the jobs question became more acute with the BJP government introducing a 4-year term for army personnel. Agniveer is one such ‘reform’ that clearly cost the BJP. Add to all this the rural economy, which, after the pandemic, had to support more people not getting jobs in factories and cities, plus a general complaint about inflation.

When everyone makes the same promises, no one benefits
The BJP introduced the free foodgrain scheme, the Congress promised to improve it, Jagan Reddy promised, so did a few others – but there is no evidence that welfare schemes and/or freebies decisively influenced the outcome anywhere this time. It is not that low-income voters do not like schemes and freebies, it is just that once delivery is assured, parties gain little political advantage by offering more of the same. Without such promises, the party will surely be at a disadvantage. But when every party makes the same promises, no party gains much.