A Chronicle of Resistance and Revival

In Contesting Democratic Deficit, Salman Khurshid & Mritunjay Singh Yadav analyse India's 2024 electoral battle, which was essentially a fight to reclaim democracy from the grip of centralisation, polarisation, and fading constitutional hope. Excerpts:

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After an in-depth analysis by our war room, we were confident of winning around 110-120 seats. However, the exit poll results on 1 June belied all reports from the field, which had progressively tilted in favour of the INDIA Alliance. All the polls universally gave the BJP a runaway victory. They forecast that the BJP and its allies would win more than 350 seats in the Lok Sabha, prompting Congress leaders to express reservations about the reliability of the projections.

Our alliance partners put up a brave face, and the usual responses about such polls being often unreliable were given out. But there were worries given the recent questions about voter data. However, we found some reassurance in the assessments of seasoned pollsters like Yogendra Yadav, along with independent journalists like Mahesh Choudhary and alternative media outlets, who predicted that the BJP's seat count would be in a more modest range of 220-230.

Unverified reports claimed that several exit polls were supposedly moderated under the ruling party's 'advice'. Inevitably, speculation began about an advance coverup for a manipulated result in favour of the government.

Fortunately, all these fears turned out to be unwarranted because it was another story once the results hit the television channels on 4 June. The BJP did not win a majority, but it emerged as the largest single party, winning 240 seats. The BJP-led NDA (with the JD(U) and the TDP, two slippery partners) won 293 seats, enough to be invited to form the government.