Lok Sabha Election Results 2024 Highlights: 'Will work towards building a Viksit Bharat,' says PM Modi after NDA elects him leader

Shrugging off celebrations in the opposition camp over BJP’s loss of majority, PM Narendra Modi Tuesday declared his third term would be defined by bold decisions, signalled the likelihood of fresh initiatives specifically aimed at women, the poor and SCs/STs and declared his intent to press on with his drive against corruption.

The Election Commission of India has declared results for all Lok Sabha constituencies, with the BJP winning 240 of the 543 seats and the Congress 99. The last result to be announced was that of Beed constituency in Maharashtra, where NCP (Sharad Pawar) candidate Bajrang Manohar Sonwane defeated the BJP's Pankaja Munde by 6,553 votes.

A significant portion of the INDIA bloc’s success rests on Muslims, who voted decisively against BJP and formed a coalition with backward castes and Dalits. This restricted BJP from getting a clear majority while giving Samajwadi Party in UP and TMC in West Bengal a clear advantage.

Lok Sabha elections saw a decisive win for a caste-focused coalition in UP, reshaping the political landscape. This shift from religious to caste-based campaigning highlighted a significant change in voter priorities. The opposition alliance, led by SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, ran on a platform of caste census and constitutional protections, appealing primarily to Dalits and OBCs. In contrast, PM Modi’s campaign centred around religious themes.

An economy that grew 8.2% in 2023-24, following two years of high growth, would normally have been seen as an electoral asset for an incumbent govt. Not only should a majority of people have seen a rise in living standards, but the ruling party would have made it a central campaign plank. Neither of those things happened. Reason: India is facing a jobs crisis, which sharpened the bite of rising prices.

The C-word was a ‘wild card’ entry, but at several stages of the election campaign, the Samvidhan overshadowed the regular cast of issues. Opposition was first on the draw, cleverly painting BJP’s 400-paar target as a dark plot to scrap reservations by changing the Constitution. The charge blended well with Rahul Gandhi’s declared intent of posing a phalanx of Muslims/OBCs/Dalits against a handful of the privileged (read upper castes/middle classes).

The average margin of victory in 2024 Lok Sabha polls was about 1.6 lakh votes, but that varied significantly across states. Not surprisingly, those that were dominated by a single party or alliance saw the highest average margins while states that saw two alliances or parties going toe to toe had significantly narrower margins of victory on average.

BJP saw its national vote share fall marginally from 37.3% in 2019 to 36.6% in 2024, but its seat tally dropped by 63 from 303 to 240, putting it well below the halfway mark. In contrast, Congress raised its vote share a bit from 19.5% last time to 21.2%, but that was enough to nearly double its seat tally from 52 to 99.

INDIA bloc members will meet on Wednesday and decide whether to approach former partners including JD(U) and TDP to attempt govt formation at Centre. Congress’ Rahul Gandhi made it clear that there will be no unilateral decision on this. Indicating that “it is a very fine line” Gandhi said “whatever INDIA bloc will decide they will act on it.”

No-choice turned out to be Indore’s second choice in a one-sided fight. Nota polled a record 2.18 lakh votes in MP’s commercial capital in an election where a last-minute switch to BJP by Congress candidate left the saffron camp without a challenger.

What’s common between Chandrababu Naidu and Nitish Kumar apart from being kingmakers once again? For years, both the satraps have sought special category status for their states that saw bifurcation.

Women voters in Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi seem to have played as significant a role in BJP rookie Kangana Ranaut’s triumph over Vikramaditya Singh as her movie-star allure and a bit of Modi magic as he publicly rooted for her, saying she reflected “the aspirations of our nation’s daughters”.

Psephologist Pradeep Gupta wept on live television on Tuesday. The reputed pollster was way off target in his prediction of Lok Sabha 2024 election results. Axis-IndiaToday had given 361-401 seats to NDA.

He wasn’t the only one psephologist who got the outcome wrong. Today’s Chanakya-News24, ETG-Times Now, Marize-Republic Bharat, ABP-CVoter — all were spectacularly inaccurate. And many were left wondering what could have led to the mismatch between exit polls and actual results.

Narendra Modi won Varanasi Lok Sabha seat by defeating INDIA bloc candidate and UP Congress chief Ajay Rai, but the 1.5-lakh-vote victory margin on Tuesday marked the closest contest he has faced since 2014, and a steep fall from 2019 when he won by 4.8 lakh votes.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) recorded its third consecutive win from the Kurukshetra constituency in the 18th Lok Sabha elections, as saffron party candidate Naveen Jindal, an industrialist, defeated Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) candidate Sushil Gupta contesting under the banner of INDIA bloc in a close contest on Tuesday.

RJD leader Misa Bharti, who happens to be the daughter of Lalu Yadav, won from Patliputra Lok Sabha constituency and received her winning certificate.