As we are heading towards 2024, the country is looking forward towards the most awaited general elections scheduled to be held around May, 2024. The ruling dispensation, NDA, under the leadership of BJP has been in power for the last two terms. The opposition this time is appearing more organised with a host of opposition parties coming together to form a coalition named INDIA.
In the recent past there were elections in 5 states which many considered as a precursor of the 2024 elections. NDA (BJP) won 3 of the five states while INDIA ( Congress) won only 1 state. But before these 5 states there were elections in other states in 2023 like Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh. In these states Congress defeated the BJP. So 2023 has been mixed fortune for both the alliances all through the year. But mainly in the Hindi belt the dominance of BJP has continued.
A lot has been discussed about the possibility of 2024 election results. Many have debated that these elections are a done deal with winning of NDA is almost assured. NDA leadership has asserted that the target for them in the next general elections is 400 seats or more. The INDIA parties have asserted that the goal for them is to ensure that they get a majority, i.e. 272 or more seats in the elections.
In this article we focus our analysis from the 2019 general election results and the events after that to frame an analysis on what are the likely scenarios in the upcoming elections.
As per the 2019 elections, NDA won 352 seats and all other non NDA parties won 191 seats. A deeper analysis suggests that out of these 352 seats, 314 seats came from 22 states and union territories.
From the rest of the 14 states and union territories, the NDA got only 38 seats out of 190 seats. So it can be seen based on 2019 general elections results, India can be divided into two distinct regions. One, as we call in this article as the NDA dominated region which accounted for a total of 353 seats of which the NDA has won approximately 89 percent of the seats and the other is the opposition dominated region which accounted for a total of 190 seats of which the opposition parties won 80 percent of the seats with NDA winning only the rest 20 percent.
Now the question is how has the situation been in these two regions over these 5 years. Has the dominance pattern remained unchanged or has there been any trend of change in the dominance pattern in these two regions. This will be the key factor in determining the trend for the upcoming general elections. Let us analyse the trends in these two regions.
NDA Dominated Region
This region paved the way for an NDA win in 2019. This region comprises almost the entire Hindi heartland, the North eastern states, the western states and Karnataka being the sole representative of the southern states. BJP has continued their supremacy in the Hindi heartland states even after 2019 with large sweeps in UP, MP, Rajasthan among other states. North east also has remained a stronghold of the NDA post 2019. The other state where BJP has continued its grip is Gujarat which has been its citadel for years.
But there are certain states in these regions where BJP has lost its grip post 2019. One such state is Bihar where the alliance with JDU has broken and with JDU and RJD coming together now there is a formidable opposition. Similar has been the case in Maharashtra where erstwhile Shivsena broke away from NDA and their new alliance with Congress and NCP provided a considerable threat. However there has been some dent in the opposition now with a Shivsena and NCP both being a divided house.
The other states where the BJP lost power in this region are Karnataka, Jharkhand and Himachal Pradesh. So this region can be divided into two groups purely on the basis of where BJP has been able to establish that it is its heartland and where opposition has made some dent.
BJP Heartland: This region comprises 17 states and union territories and has 219 lok sabha seats. NDA won 192 of them in 2019. These states are those where NDA has maintained their supremacy with continued victory in assembly elections and establishing their stronghold. The opposition has lost their position in these states. It is this region where NDA can expect some minor gain of seats given they have already won 87 percent of them in 2019. So the maximum gain NDA can expect from this region will be 10-15 seats taking them close to 205 which is 94 percent of all seats in this region. So not much change is expected in this region.
NDA stronghold with strong opposition: This region has 5 states and has 134 seats in Lokhabha. In 2019 NDA won 122 of these states. But post 2019, in all these states NDA has faced formidable challenges as mentioned above. This region becomes a crucial factor for this election. The opposition coalition INDIA will be keen to make a significant dent in the number of seats of NDA in this region. For NDA, it becomes crucial they hold on to their position or at least they minimize the loss from this region.
Maharashtra is the largest state in this region in terms of seat. Last election saw NDA winning 41 seats out of 48 from the state. But a lot of water has flown under the bridge since then and now the political composition of the state has changed with the BJP and Sindhe led Shivsena and Ajit Pawar led NCP in one side and Congress and Uddhav Thackeray led Shivsena and Sharad Pawar led NCP in the other side.The final strength of the alliances are dependent on both alliances having smooth seat sharing among themselves. Based on the recent surveys both alliances are expected to have a tight fight among themselves. This may lead to a decline in NDA seats as compared to 2019.
Bihar is another state with the JDU and RJD combination, the INDIA group stands a formidable chance against NDA. Moreover the state government successfully implemented the caste survey based measures which has been the main issue of the INDIA group. Here NDA had won 39 of the 40 seats in 2019. Given the strength of the opposition and the recent surveys one can expect a tight race in this state as well suggesting a decline in NDA seats as compared to 2019.
Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh and Jharkhand have seen BJP losing the state elections while winning almost 100 percent of the seats in Loksabha in 2019. The argument this time around is that the Modi factor is strong in these states and the BJP might still win a significant number of seats in 2024 but the local leadership in the states for Congress especially in Karnataka is strong and this might lead to a close fight especially in Karnataka. Jharkhand and HP also might see some loss for BJP given the extent of the win in 2019.
So overall in this region one can expect NDA to lose some seats in this region but the major question is up to what extent? The extent of this loss will be a huge determining factor for deciding the final numbers of both NDA and INDIA groups in 2024. This is going to be the most crucial region which might see a significant change if at all for 2024 as per the trends.
Opposition Dominated Region
This is the region which withstood the wave of NDA and BJP in 2019 and we saw the opposition hold on to their strongholds. This region has 190 seats and it has those states where the regional satraps have been the key force of reckoning. In almost each of these states the regional satraps are the ones who are holding the fort and the fight is either between the two regional satraps or the fight is between a national party and a regional satrap.
This region also can be divided into two groups mainly on the basis of states and union territories where the INDIA group is having a direct fight with NDA or a regional satrap is having a direct fight with NDA or state where there is some power share increase for both alliances. The second group are states where fight between India group and regional alliance or fight between regional satraps.
NDA presence group states: This group has 93 seats where the 80 seats come from 3 states of West Bengal, Odisha and Telangan. West Bengal had seen BJP win 18 seats in 2019. But in 2021, in spite of much hype in the assembly elections BJP won 77 seats of 294 seats with TMC winning a comfortable majority. Given the present trend in this state, if BJP holds on to 18 seats that will be a great performance for them. Odisha is a state where we see a regional satrap fight with NDA. Here BJP won 8 seats in 2019 and the trends at this point don’t show a significant change at this point.Telangana is a state where the INDIA group has just come to power and this state might see an increase in INDIA seats. BJP won 4 seats in 2019. While their vote share increased in this assembly this might not lead to a significant number of seats apart from 1 or 2.
In a nutshell in this region not much change is expected in the number of NDA seats, the number of INDIA seats might see an increase with the seats of regional parties not in any of the group reduces.
Non NDA presence states: This group account for 97 seats out of which NDA won 3 seats. Tamil Nadu is one state where BJP has tried to increase their presence but in the other states not much change is expected. If an alliance with AIADMK and BJP happens in Tamil Nadu , there can be some change in the numbers in this region but it remains to be seen whether this alliance happens and if it happens how much dent does it make.
Conclusion
So from the two regions of 2019 we move to 4 regions. Based on the trends in these 4 regions we can come up with a few scenarios.
Scenario 1: NDA winning 400 seats
Based on the trends in the 4 regions it seems that NDA can see an increase of 10-15 seats in region 1 or BJP heartland which is puts NDA in advantageous position. But in region 2 there can be a loss and the extent of the loss can be significant if the INDIA group can work well on ground. Even if NDA is able to hold to their wins still since already they have reached the peak here and no such area of improvement. Region 3 and Region 4 also do not show significant change in trend as compared to 2019. Region 3 could have been BJP’s area of expansion but at least at this point trends in ground don’t suggest such trends. Thus this scenario seems highly unlikely.
Scenario 2: INDIA alliance getting majority
As has been discussed region 1 is the BJP heartland and here INDIA might see a loss of seats and not much is expected from this region. The major focus for the INDIA group lies in region 2. This is where they can expect to make a dent in seats of NDA. But given the INDIA alliance also does not expect major gains from region 3 and 4 apart from Telanagana, the focus is on region 2. But with not much significant change in other regions, INDIA alliance will need a 70-75 seats increase in this region which at this point seems to be highly unlikely. The loss of NDA or the win of INDIA in this region might be happening but no trends are there in those states to suggest that it will be up to this extent. Hence this is also an unlikely scenario.
So the most likely scenario will depend on the outcome of the region 2. It is those 134 seats which will determine the final numbers for this Loksabha given the trends in other states are mostly going to remain unchanged as 2019. So it remains to be seen how much the NDA is able to hold in this region and how much the INDIA group is able to make a dent. The final number will be dependent on the ground realities of strength of both the coalitions in those 134 seats.
Indian Political Debate 