400? 272? 210?

Three scenarios for Lok Sabha election 2024, depending on how many seats the BJP wins, and its impact on government formation and party leadership.

Arun Vernekar from Karwar in Karnataka accidentally cut his finger while trying to collect blood to offer Goddess Kali. Here, he is praying for a third term for Modi.  | Photo Credit: BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

On June 4, we will know whether Narendra Modi will win a third term as Prime Minister or not. His party gets a simple majority in the Lok Sabha if the BJP wins 272 of the 543 seats. As we wait with bated breath for the results, instead of engaging with the inevitably frenetic number-crunching of probable losses or gains in each State, this column examines what could happen in the event of different outcomes, ranging from 310 to 210 seats, for the BJP.

Scenario 1: 272 to 310 seats for the BJP. Some pollsters have been suggesting that the BJP could repeat its 2019 result and get 303 seats. Should the BJP even drop 30 seats and make it to the bare minimum simple majority, it would still be a comfortable win. Modi will pose and make speeches about, well, Modi and how he will take India to great heights. The loyal broadcast media will applaud and amplify the moment and gloss over the losses.

It is possible that this could be achieved even if the vote share drops in the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system. In 2014, a single party won a simple majority in Parliament after three decades: the BJP got 282 seats with 31 per cent of the vote share. The Modi-powered BJP actually registered only a 12 per cent increase in vote share from the 2009 Lok Sabha election (18.8 per cent).

That is the FPTP conundrum. The BJP under Prime Minister Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah has a good grip on the organisational and technical aspects of the election, on the need to cross a certain threshold, and on how to keep the opposition divided. It did very well on this front in 2014 when a party like the Bahujan Samaj Party, led by Mayawati, got 20 per cent of the vote share in Uttar Pradesh but zero seats. The BJP’s domination continued in 2019 when it got 37.36 per cent of the national vote share and 303 seats.

Originally, the pitch for the 2024 election was that the BJP would cross 400 seats, but that has been toned down somewhat and in the last lap the talk is of 300-plus seats. The consequences for the country in Scenario 1 are that the tilt towards authoritarianism will not be checked. Given the rhetoric of the campaign, we must also presume that hostility towards minorities could escalate.

The opposition parties, whom the BJP treats as enemies with incarcerations and fund seizures, will again be in for a rough ride. The AAP and Arvind Kejriwal are special targets, but we must presume that leaders of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi, the Congress, the Trinamool Congress, and the Rashtriya Janata Dal could all face further action by state agencies. It will all be calibrated on the basis of the BJP’s ambitions/blueprints in specific States.

There are questions about the BJP’s inner dynamics as well. Should Modi look omnipotent, then certainly the position of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will become intriguing, given that he is an outlier in the cult of obedient State leaders in the Modi-era BJP. If Uttar Pradesh sees a dip in the number of seats for the BJP but Modi still manages a majority, then Adityanath will likely be blamed for the losses. Should the BJP sweep the State, then it would place Modi comfortably in the chair and again Adityanath could be dispensed with. The best case scenario for the Uttar Pradesh leader is a precarious majority that would discourage the national BJP leadership from rocking the boat.

Scenario 2: The BJP gets between 240 and 260 seats, but with its National Democratic Alliance allies, it makes the halfway mark. If even the NDA falls short, Modi’s managers are likely to work on parties that have cases against them, such as those in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, and that sit on the fence, as in Odisha. The BJP would begin “Operation Lotus” across the country as it has done several times in the past five years and broken other parties.

The government that comes to power in Scenario 2 would be less dictatorial if Modi does not have numbers on his own. It would be a psychologically interesting process to see Modi at the mercy of others who have their own politics: imagine a Nitish Kumar or an Eknath Shinde with a few MPs calling the shots. Would it work and if so for how long?

Highlights

• Should the BJP even drop 30 seats and make it to the bare minimum simple majority, it would still be a comfortable win.
• If even the NDA falls short, Modi’s managers are likely to work on parties that have cases against them, such as those in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, and that sit on the fence, as in Odisha.
• If the BJP wins 210 to 230 seats and is still the single largest party, there is a probability that it will be invited to form a coalition government.

Even to reduce the BJP to this figure would imply that there is a certain coalition of the poor that has been forged against the blatant cronyism of the Modi regime. It would be hard for a personality such as Modi to accept that he has lost any ground, but he is also a ruthless politician and would, along with Amit Shah, use every method to remain in office and protect his backers such as Adani Group.

The final tally in each State would need to be carefully examined to see the implications for crucial State elections, such as in Maharashtra and Haryana in October this year and in Bihar in 2025. People’s protests could also erupt over issues such as reservation, minimum support price, the Agniveer scheme, privatisation of healthcare and education, and more.

Scenario 3: What if the BJP wins 210 to 230 seats and is still the single largest party? There is a probability that it will be invited to form a coalition government. The first coalition in India’s history to complete its term was led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee from 1999 to 2004, and in that era the BJP had just 182 seats.

But Modi is singularly incapable of the give-and-take that Vajpayee managed in those years. The RSS has had to watch Modi implement its ideological agenda even as he has pushed it to the sidelines, bringing in several corruption-accused members from other parties. This writer saw the lack of enthusiasm among RSS cadre while travelling in Fatehpur Sikri, Aligarh, and Meerut, seats in Uttar Pradesh that the BJP won by large margins in 2019.

Scenario 3 also sees the possibility of the RSS again getting the upper hand and forcing a change of leadership. The name of Nitin Gadkari is most frequently mentioned in such a situation, but there is also Rajnath Singh, and both have been RSS-selected BJP presidents in the past. Big capitalists based in Maharashtra would play a role in such a situation ,and if it takes off, the possibility of some INDIA bloc members choosing a non-Modi-led BJP front over a Congress-led front cannot be ruled out. We must also not forget that the Prime Minister in the course of his campaign suddenly attacked Ambani and Adani.

If Modi is actually pushed out of the picture, then anything can happen in coalition formation. The possibility of the Congress leading an alternative government involves first the BJP losing a chunk of seats and the Congress ideally adding 50 seats and going from 52 to somewhere around 100. Stable coalitions have involved national parties at the Centre, first led by the BJP under Vajpayee and then the Congress for two terms from 2004 to 2014 under Manmohan Singh. In 2004, the Congress got 145 seats, just 7 more than the 138 the BJP recorded. Vajpayee accepted the mandate. The Modi-Shah duo run a different operation, and it has been “my way or the highway” so far. Will numbers force them to change or vacate power or will they sail through and still manage a simple majority?

The most perplexing thing about coalitions is that until the exact numbers come, one cannot predict a formula. It is with the numbers that the hard bargaining begins. 

Saba Naqvi is a Delhi based journalist and author of four books who writes on politics and identity issues.