Modi 3.0: How The Setback Of June 2024 Made BJP Unstoppable

Sanbeer Singh Ranhotra

After 2024, the BJP did something most parties are too proud to do. It looked honestly at the damage and fixed it. It discussed its overconfidence, and introspected.

June 4, 2024 did not go according to plan for the BJP. For weeks, exit polls had been falling over themselves with bullish predictions. The BJP’s topmost leadership itself was absolutely certain that the NDA would cross 400 seats in the Lok Sabha. The “400 paar" chant had moved from slogan to near-certainty in the minds of party workers from Nagpur to New Delhi. Then the actual votes got counted. The result stunned the whole world – BJP reduced to a measly 240 seats. Not the 303 from 2019. Not 282 from 2014. The NDA cobbled together 293 with help from Chandrababu Naidu and Nitish Kumar, which was enough to form a government – but only just. For the first time in ten years, Modi needed other people’s seats to stay in office.

The reaction was swift and predictable. Every columnist who had spent a decade waiting for this moment reached for their keyboard. The opposition called it a people’s verdict against Modi personally. International publications questioned whether PM Modi’s grip on power was slipping. The INDIA bloc had won 233 seats – nowhere near enough to govern, but more than enough to claim the narrative – a “moral victory." For about a week, it felt like a turning point.

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That was two years ago. Last month, Bloomberg published a piece headlined “Resurgent Modi Paves Way to Keep Power in India Well Beyond 2030." The same publication that had run sceptical analysis after June 2024 now described Modi as the “heavy favourite" for 2029 and said the BJP was “simply in a very strong position." Michael Kugelman of the Atlantic........

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