The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has recorded a historic win in the recently concluded Lok Sabha election. It was able to secure 282 seats on its own and up to 335 with its allies. Many have argued that it is not a victory of the BJP, but its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. Another historic aspect of this election is the all time low of the Congress Party, which was restricted to meager 44 seats. These two aspects will surely have an enduring impact on the pattern of Indian democracy and the national party system. The fractured mandate that has been a feature of the Indian electoral scenario since the 1989 general election has had a significant impact on the party system for the last two decades. In a similar fashion, the recently concluded general election will also leave its mark on the Indian democracy.

A deeper analysis of the election at the state level shows that the BJP has virtually swept most of the states especially in the Hindi-heartland and managed to reduce the Congress, and other opposition parties to an all-time low. The results in the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh were very interesting. With strong regional players like the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), it seemed impossible for even the most generous psephologist to predict more than 50 seats for the BJP. However, the BJP surpassed all expectations, and acquired 71 seats (2 more with its allies) in the state. This dominance of the BJP in Uttar Pradesh is certainly going to reflect in the assembly election in this state. Similarly, in the neighboring state of Bihar, the party recorded a historic mandate, reducing its former ally, Janata Dal (United), to mere 2 seats. In addition, the BJP was able to overshadow the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)-Congress alliance consolidation of Yadav-Muslim voters in the state. It reduced the alliance to just four seats. The BJP strategically aligned with Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) and Rastriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP) to consolidate its support amongst the lower Other Backward Castes (OBC) and Dushadhs. This along with Modi’s extensive campaigning in the state helped the party and its allies win 31 seats.

Other important results that contributed to the BJP’s over-all victory were the landslide victories in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarkhand, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Bihar, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Madhya Pradesh. In many of these states, the BJP’s vote share crossed the 50 percent mark, creating electoral history. This domination of the party is going to fundamentally restructure the nature of political competition in all of these states.

Amongst these significant BJP victories, one often forgets to give due credit to strong regional players like the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in Odisha, Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) in Tamil Nadu. However, in spite of securing support from a sizeable portion of the electorate, these regional parties will not have enough say in the parliament, at least when one compares it to the post-1989 and pre-2014 era. In addition the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the debutant party, that surprised everyone by securing the sizable number of seats in the assembly election and formed the state government in Delhi, was not able to do well in the Lok Sabha election. Punjab is an exception where it obtained four seats, and capture significant percentage of the vote share. Interestingly, the party was able to achieve this on a modest campaigning budget, as opposed to the money spent by both the BJP and the Congress. Prima facie, it could be said that the anti-incumbency factor, both at the national and state level, contributed to the victory of the AAP in the state.

While we wait for in-depth analysis at the state-level, it is important to shed some light on the impact of these results on the government model. Post-1989 the fractured mandate at the national level had made the regional players important at the center. Many of the regional parties, at least in Northern India were result of the Mandal agitation. They brought to parliament and politicized the subaltern groups at the national level. However, the historic mandate given to the BJP might marginalize their political sway, at least at the national level.

To conclude, the results clearly highlight the need to review the theories on Indian party system at the national and the state level. Political theories are not etched in stone, and should be reviewed constantly to capture the dynamics of political developments in the country.

- By Dishil Shrimankar