Prima facie, it seems 2004 all over again. Everybody seems to have been carried by the narrative of election being a foregone conclusion but the voters believed otherwise. Like 2004, all exit polls end up with egg on their face. It is possible they did not carry the polls altogether, just went with the prevailing narrative. While there has to be post mortem on the exit polls, what matters would obviously be why the results manifested this way.
Numerous explanations have been attempted almost everyone giving their wisdom in hindsight. There has been talk of candidate selection for instance. Yet the fact that PM Modi himself struggled throws this explanation aside. There is certain merit in assertions that the rumours of reservation being ended did play a role. This was borrowed from the Karnataka elections in 2023. The sub categorization of quotas did hurt the ruling BJP with Congress going to town that reservations are being stopped. Rahul Gandhi only picked it and threw it left right and centre. Lies and rumours float pretty fast, something very well documented in research. Counters perhaps were ineffective. Yet what it fails to explain is why this narrative stuck in some parts of the country. For instance undivided MP (MP + Chattisgarh) has the largest number of people of Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Scheduled Castes (SC) combined. Yet it gave BJP a clean sweep. Orissa has good number of SCs and STs so has Gujarat two other states with clean sweep. BJP performed well in Karnataka winning 3 of the 5 SC seats besides winning a couple of other seats with substantial SC/ST population.
Freebies and wealth redistribution do have their own allure. No doubt, Congress plan did give them the advantage. But as Karnataka and Telangana showed freebies have their limits. Congress setbacks in both states which they won hardly few months ago negate this assertion.
Rajasthan was in bit of transition. There was naturally a pushback from Vasundhara faction of the party. Despite this the party has managed to come out well in alignment with the results of the state assembly last year perhaps indicates they have survived the initial trouble of transition. Maharashtra was a little complex. There was a strong arithmetic of the Congress, NCP- Pawar faction and Udhav faction of Shiv Sena against BJP and rump factions of NCP and Sena. Furthermore, the Maratha reservation agitation did hurt the BJP quite badly. Moreover, the emergence of Devendra Fadnavis, a Brahmin cannot be countenanced by the other castes and hence the backlash.
West Bengal, a traditionally pro-incumbency state barring massive dramatic revolution a la Nandigram Singur etc voted to keep ups it tradition. There is also the strong minority firewall which protects the Trinamool. NE saw a mix of anti and pro-incumbency Assam being the great example of the latter. Haryana, facing an anti-incumbency plus like Maharashtra not able to countenance Manohar Lal Khattar a Punjabi ruling over a traditional Jat fiefdom resulted in the adverse effects
Agniveer did not have an impact given Uttarakhand and Himachal both giving sweeps to the BJP. In fact Bihar which witnessed strong violence post Agniveer too gave NDA the honours . This brings us to the key state of Uttar Pradesh. The only differential explanation was perception about Yogi Adityanath on the ground is very different from what is perceived through social media and by extension, the rest of the country. Perhaps it is the perception of Thakurwaad politics that made other castes consolidate, perhaps Yogi is not able to get the Ajay Singh Bisht out of him. Or maybe it is something else. What is undisputed there is strong anti-establishment against Yogi Adityanath at least in many part of the state. That seem to override pro-Modi fervour.
The question arises will Yogi succeed Modi. This was treated as a foregone conclusion by almost every social media warrior. At this moment, all that can be said is succession is open, something the past posts too have indicated. While on succession, two other pretenders Shivraj Singh Chauhan and Himanta Biswa Sarma both have come out with flying colours. One of them deserve to be the party President or a key ministry in the centre, though the latter might be unwilling to move out of Dispur.
Modi is neither a Narasimha Rao nor a Vajpayee who both ran minority governments fairly successfully through differing styles. Indira Gandhi had that issue in 1967-71 though not a minority initially, she handled it in her own style, we have to wait for Modi to handle this with his unique imprint.
Thoughts on Theory and Practice 