A local national verdict

Issues of unemployment, price rise and agrarian distress seem to have shifted voter sentiment in the recent general elections

- SHAGUN, RAJU SAJWAN, MOHD IMRAN KHAN, HIMANSHU N, AJIT PANDA

LAXMAN BAG, a former daily wage labourer, defeated Odisha's five-term chief minister Naveen Patnaik from the Kantabanji Assembly constituency in the recently concluded elections. Kantabanji in west Odisha has been in the news for large-scale outward migration of labourers due to lack of employment in the area.

In Bihar, Mithilesh Tiwari of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is in power in the state along with the Janata Dal (United), lost the Buxar Lok Sabha constituency to Rashtriya Janata Dal's Sudhakar Singh.

The government's handling of a land acquisition drive over the past few years to build a power plant is reported to have played a major role in the electoral loss. "We voted against BJP for ignoring our demands. The brutal police action against our peaceful protest backfired," Haridayal Tiwari, a farmer from Buxar's Banarpur village, tells Down To Earth (DTE).

India just saw conclusion of its longest general election that ran from April 19 to June 1. Some 600 million people voted in the polls to elect members to the Lok Sabha as well as to four state Assemblies. By 6 pm on June 4, the verdict of the world's largest electoral exercise was out, with many unlikely defeats and victories, such as those mentioned above.

The ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP, was expected to sail into a third consecutive term, with a bigger majority in the Lok Sabha. The opposing bloc-the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA)-led by Indian National Congress, was to be pushed into electoral oblivion. But the final results show a relatively close contest: 292 seats to NDA and 234 seats to INDIA bloc, with BJP falling much short of the majority mark of 272 seats.