*(Photo: Rahul Gandhi, leader of the Congress Party. Global Indian Times ©)*

June 9, 2024

By Ignatius Chithelen*

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) loss in Ayodhya in the parliamentary elections, whose results were announced on June 4, reveals both the complex mix of Indian voters as well as the simple math for winning elections in India.

In January this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated a Ram Temple in Ayodhya, which is part of the Faizabad parliamentary constituency. Up until 1992, a mosque stood at the site where the temple was built. That year, the mosque, which was built in the 16th century, was destroyed by a mob of Hindu extremists. The mob’s leaders reportedly had ties to the BJP and other groups, which are all controlled by the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, a secretive, militant Hindu nationalist organization.

The mosque’s destruction triggered Hindu Muslim clashes across India in which more than 2,000, mostly Muslims, were killed. The BJP, whose leaders campaigned for the mosque to be replaced by a temple, rode a wave of Hindu nationalism to big electoral gains. This was evident in the 1996 parliamentary elections in which the BJP won 161 seats , up from two in the 1984 elections.

The new Ram temple in Ayodhya, built at a cost of Rs.1,800 crores ($217 million), fulfilled the BJP’s “long-held Hindu nationalist pledge,” as AP News reported.

Ayodhya is in Uttar Pradesh (U.P.), the largest state, which is key to winning national elections with a population of 250 million and 80 parliamentary seats.

Apparently, Modi,73, expected the new temple would attract more Hindu votes to the BJP. In fact, the party’s leaders forecast that Modi would easily win re-election and that too with the BJP alone securing a two thirds majority.

On the contrary, when results were announced, the BJP lost its majority, securing 240 of the 543 parliamentary seats. Modi was re-elected Prime Minister only because allied regional parties won an additional 52 seats, giving the BJP-led coalition a total of 292 seats.

The BJP’s failure to win a majority reveals that more than half the Hindu voters had little interest in destroying more mosques and replacing them with Hindu temples, which has remained a major election pledge of BJP leaders for decades. Instead, the voters wanted jobs and affordable food prices.

Awadesh Prasad of the Samajwadi Janata Party, which is part of the opposition alliance, won the Ayodhya seat. Those voting for him reflected the caste and religious coalition which enabled the opposition to win 232 parliamentary this year, up from 65 in the 2019 elections.

Like Prasad, the other opposition candidates were chosen by their party leaders to attract voters who were unhappy with Modi from among the complex mix of religions and castes in India: five major religions - Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Christianity and Sikhism; four major Hindu castes - Brahmans, Kshatriyas (warriors and farmers), Vaishyas (business) and Dalits (low-caste); twenty major linguistic nationalities in addition to Hindi speakers - including Maharashtrians, Bengalis and Tamil.

Prasad is a Dalit or low caste Hindu. The Dalits, who make up about a fifth of U.P.’s population, are effectively barred from worshipping at many Hindu temples, especially the major ones.

BJP leaders sought to split the Dalit votes by reportedly pressuring Mayawati, a Dalit leader in the state, against joining the opposition alliance and for her to contest on its own. Mayawati has faced several investigations over corruption charges. In this year’s elections, the Dalit votes in U.P. were split roughly evenly between Mayawati’s party and an alliance of opposition parties.

Prasad got the votes of Yadavs, a sub-caste of dairy farmers, who make up about 12% of the state’s population and who are the primary supporters of the Samajwadi Party in U.P. The party is also backed by Muslims who make up about a fifth of the state’s population. Prasad won the Ayodhya seat with 49% of the votes, five percent more than his rival BJP candidate. In addition to the Yadav, Muslim and half the Dalit votes, Prasad got the votes of some of the other Hindu farmer sub-castes.

*(Photo: Akilesh Yadav, leader of the Samajwadi Janata Party.)*

Support of the same mix of voters, as in Ayodhya, enabled the opposition to win 43 parliamentary seats in U.P. this year, a big gain from the seven they won in the 2019 election. The Congress Party, which led the opposition alliance, and the Samajwadi Party together got 44% of the votes in U.P. The share of votes for Modi’s BJP fell from half in 2019 to 41% in 2024; the party won 33 seats in 2024, down from 62 in the last elections.

A united opposition winning more seats than the BJP in U.P. demonstrates the simple math of winning Indian elections. Under the country’s first-past-the-post electoral system, a candidate who receives the most votes in each seat wins. The party or coalition of parties which wins a majority of the seats in the national parliament, or other legislatures, wins the election and assumes power.

Priot to the 2024 election results, BJP leaders and the major media outlets in India labelled Modi as invincible. In reality, in the past three elections, Modi became Prime Minister with only about a third of the votes. In fact, even among Hindus, who make up about 80% of India’s population, his party got less than half of their votes.

In 2014, Modi’s BJP won a majority of 282 seats despite securing just 31 percent of the votes, the lowest share for a winning party in Indian parliamentary elections. In 2019, the BJP got 37 percent of the votes but won a majority of 303 seats. In both these elections, a fractured opposition, with rival candidates from at least two major opposition parties contesting against the BJP, enabled the BJP to win.

But this year, while the BJP got 37% of the votes, it failed to win a majority due to a united opposition fielding a single candidate against the BJP in most seats. The Congress Party led opposition alliance won 230 seats, up from 92 in 2019.

As some commentators have noted, the opposition’s performance would have been even stronger had it not been for numerous threats and obstacles faced by the parties, leaders, and candidates.

Prior to this year’s election, “the Modi administration froze some of the opposition’s bank accounts, jailed some of their leaders on corruption- and tax-related charges, and enjoyed almost uniformly laudatory coverage by mainstream media companies controlled by Modi allies,” The Washington Post reported.

Indeed, the opposition candidates were brave to contest and risk being imprisoned. Their spirit to fight the BJP was boosted by Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the Congress Party. Ignoring legal hurdles and assassination threats, he twice traveled thousands of miles across India to meet voters - the first time in 2022 by foot and the second time, early this year, in a jeep.

Modi sought to win a two thirds majority this year since he reportedly wanted to change the Indian Constitution and turn the country into a Hindu nation, while increasing the powers of the Prime Minister. Speaking at a press conference with a copy of the Constitution, Gandhi thanked the people stating, “The people of India have saved the Constitution and democracy.”

**IGNATIUS CHITHELEN IS AUTHOR OF PASSAGE FROM INDIA TO AMERICA AND SIX DEGREES OF EDUCATION.

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