Election results in India 2024

The Modi administration has spent billions connecting India, the world’s fastest-growing economy.

During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s tenure, the South Asian giant underwent a major infrastructure transformation, building roads, ports, airports, and railways across the country.

India added nearly 55,000 kilometers (about 35,000 miles) to the national highway network, an increase of 60% in overall length, between 2014 and 2023.

Infrastructure development has many benefits for the economy, including creating jobs and improving the ease of doing business.

Digital push: In recent years, the country has also built a range of tech platforms — known as digital public infrastructure — that have transformed lives and businesses.

For example, the Aadhaar program, launched in 2009, has provided millions of Indians with proof of identity for the first time. The world’s largest biometric database has also helped the government save millions by reducing corruption in welfare initiatives.

Another platform, the Unified Payments Interface, allows users to make payments instantly by scanning a QR code. It has been embraced by Indians from all walks of life, from coffee shop owners to beggars, and allowed millions of dollars to flow into the formal economy.

With multiple early rounds of votes counted, the BJP is currently falling short of a majority on its own, with 235 leads and one win, in a house where the majority mark stands at 272 seats.

The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance is still positioned to win a majority on its own. But if Modi’s party fails to win a clear mandate on its own, it would represent a big setback for the BJP, which won 282 seats on its own in 2014 and 303 seats in 2019.

Karnataka is the only southern Indian state where the right-wing BJP has a significant presence.

The election this year is a prestige fight for the Congress as it is in power in the state, but saw a massive defeat in the 2019 general election.

The BJP won 25 of the state’s 28 seats that year, while the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular), which were allies back then, won one seat each.

In this election, JDS has switched sides to the NDA and the Congress is competing alone in the country’s eighth largest state.

‘Some anti-incumbency has sunk in’

Analyst Rajat Sethi says while the BJP and its allies will “comfortably” be in a majority, it was unlikely for the ruling party to cross the majority threshold on its own.

“Prime Minister Modi has been in power for the last 10 years, and to some extent, some anti-incumbency has sunk into his electoral successes that have been there for the past 10 years,” he told Al Jazeera.

“But what we are seeing is yet another five year term for Prime Minister Modi, but with a reduced majority.”

Nevertheless, Sethi said there were still some six to seven hours left in the vote-counting process, until “we have a clear picture”.

“A lot of these seats that you’re seeing where BJP is either failing or is winning is by a very, very small margin,” he added.

BJP ahead in two Kerala seats

The BJP has never won in Kerala before. But if early leads hold, it could finally gain a foothold in the southern state. It is leading two seats at the moment.

Here’s more on why the BJP has struggled in Kerala historically, and where it hopes to break through.

Indian stock markets plunged on Tuesday after early counting showed that the race for the country’s next prime minister is more competitive than exit polls had predicted over the weekend.

Analysts fear that if incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party underperforms in the polls, key economic reforms may be put on the back burner.

India’s benchmark Sensex index, which tracks 30 large companies, and the broader Nifty 50 index each fell by nearly 5%.

The drop comes just a day after Indian stocks hit record highs, with experts predicting a resounding victory for Modi.

The 73-year-old ran on his economic record over the past 10 years, a period of robust growth for India, and aims to make the country a $5 trillion economy before the end of the current decade.

Indians voted with several significant concerns in mind.

• Unemployment: Much has been said about India’s rising economy, youth bulge and path to economic stardom. But beneath the hype lies a years-long unemployment problem. By the end of 2023, the unemployment rate among youth ages 20–24 was 44.9%, while the overall unemployment rate stood at 8.7%. In the world’s most populous country — and the nation with the largest number of young people — there is a vast gap between the supply and demand for jobs, experts say.
• Farmer protests: Agriculture is the primary source of livelihood for about 55% of India’s 1.4 billion citizens, but farming households made an average income of just 10,218 rupees ($137) per month in 2018–19, according to the latest government statistics — 316 rupees below the nation’s average salary that year. Protesting farmers have repeatedly taken to the streets to demand stronger guarantees for their economic welfare, emerging as the strongest threat to the ruling party in recent years, some analysts say.
• Democracy in decline: India’s opposition parties say they are campaigning with the intention of “saving” India’s democracy. And analysts have sounded alarm over the alleged weaponization of federal agencies to imprison critics of Modi and his government. The recent detention of Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal sent a jolt through the country, and indexes of press freedom and democracy show India sliding down in rankings.
• Rising religious tensions: Critics say Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have resorted to divisive tactics to win support during their decade in power, marginalizing millions of minorities as they push their Hindu nationalist credentials in the constitutionally secular country, while giving rise to pockets of deadly violence. The BJP says it doesn’t discriminate based on religion, but many minorities — especially Muslims — have raised fears of another five years of Modi.