DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA ● REG.NO. MCS/067/2018 - 20 RNI REGN. NO. 1543/57 JOURNALISM OF COURAGE WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 2024, MUMBAI, LATE CITY, 32 PAGES `5.00 ● WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 BJPTALLYDOWNBY63,NITISHANDNAIDUEMERGEKEYPLAYERS India gives NDA third term, Modi a message 543 (-43) TotalSeats CONG+ 232 (+112) OTHERS 17 (-69) VOTE SHARE BJP+ 294 CONG+ 40.66% (+6.94%*) OTHERS 16.60% (-5.31*) BJP+ 42.74% (-1.63%*) State polls good news Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal setbacks behind BJP losing majority for NDA: BJP ends V 2024 Naveen rule in Odisha, TDP back in Andhra BALANCE Note: 2019 figures based on tally of current alliance members; Figures include wins/ leads as of 10 pm; *Percentage points. Source: EC ERDICT PAGE 12 EDITORIAL PAGE RESTORED Pratap Bhanu Mehta PAGE 9 THE BJP Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi. Anil Sharma Tough road ahead for BJP plans — one-poll push to delimitation PAGE 16 ‘NDA GOVT WILL WORK WITH ALL STATES’ PM: First time since 1962, a govt elected three times in a row MANOJ C G & LIZ MATHEW NEW DELHI, JUNE 4 Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the BJP headquarters in New Delhi on Tuesday. Tashi Tobgyal CONGRESS TALLY UP TO 99 Boosted by big gains, Cong says will talk to allies on forming govt NEW DELHI, JUNE 4 THECONGRESSisbackonitsfeet — almost. Whiletheparty haswonoris leading in 99 seats, the INDIA bloc —poweredby aremarkable show by the Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh and Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal — has won 232 seats. After a gap of 10 years, the Congress has secured the numbers to claim the post of Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, andearnedtherighttobeamore aggressive Opposition force. 05/06/2024 130 CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 NEW DELHI, JUNE 4 BUSINESS AS USUAL BY UNNY ent on alliance partners especially the TDP and JD(U), ending CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 THE TDP and JD(U), two parties key to the third successive stint of the NDA at the Centre, have decided to press for the post of the Speaker of the Lok Sabha. Sources said the two parties have already indicated tothe BJP leadership that the Speaker’s postshouldbeofferedtoalliance partners — TDP’s GMC Balayogi was Speaker when Atal Bihari Vajpaye was heading a coalition government in the late 1990s. This move, sources said, is to “insulate” the alliance partners from any possible split in the future. The Speaker’s role is crucial CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 HITESH VYAS & GEORGE MATHEW MUMBAI, JUNE 4 WITHTHELokSabhaelectionresultsTuesday makingitclearthe BJP would not be able to reach the majority mark on its own and would have to depend on its allies to form the government at the Centre, domestic stock mar- kets witnessed its worst trading sessions in over four years with the Sensex and the Nifty crashing over 8 per cent during intraday trades. During intraday trades, the Sensex tanked 6,234.35 points and the broader Nifty plummeted 1982.45points. However, benchmark indices recouped some of the losses to finally end 6 per cent down. The Sensex closed at 72,079.05, down 4,389.73 points, or 5.74 points. The NSE’s Nifty 50 tanked 1,379.4 points, or 5.93 per cent, to close at 21,884.5. The market capitalisation of BSE-listed firms plunged to Rs 394.83lakhcrore,downRs31.07 lakh crore, compared to Rs 425.91 lakh crore on Monday. Foreign portfolioinvestors (FPIs) CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Refrain behind verdict: ‘Centre’s power too one-sided, a little ankush (restraint)?’ 158 NEERJA CHOWDHURY NEW DELHI, JUNE 4 197 IFONEwordcansumuptheout73 LIZ MATHEW Worst trading session in 4 yrs: On exit poll high, markets fall 6% as BJP loses majority come of the 2024 elections, it is the Hindi word, “ankush,” (restraint) that the Indian voter has exercised—shehasgiventheBJP the mandate to rule for a third term — but has also reined it in. The BJP leadership will now have to rule at the head of a coalition gov● ernment, take along its allies, be more mindful of its own party E EXPLAINED MANOJ C G Significantly, the Congress did not outrightly rule out the possibility of exploring the options for government formation. Sources said the INDIA bloc has made some overtures to both JD(U) chief and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and TDP supremo Chandrababu Naidu – both in the NDA camp – who are together leading in 28 seats. Party leaders said Nitish and Naidu have the NDA and INDIA bloc options open before them. “So we have reached out to them and conveyed our mind…but are not aggressively looking at government THE PEOPLE have spoken and the NDA with leads in 294 Lok Sabha seats is set to return for a third term but the mandate is not exactly what Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who spearheaded the BJP campaign, may have hoped for. Contrary to exit polls that predicted a landslide for the ruling alliance,the BJPTuesday was short of a majority on its own – with 272 as the halfway in the House of 543, its leads hovered around the 240-mark at night – and appeared heavily depend- As insurance, TDP & JD(U) push case for Speaker’s post leaders who were given short shrift. The BJP may still dismiss concerns raised by the Opposition but it will be aware thatitcan’tquitegetawaywithit – with a 60-plus dip in their tally. In democratic politics, arithmeticalso shapeschemistryand Prime Minister Narendra Modi knows that. Ever since he began contesting elections in 2001, he has never been part of a formation that’s not in majority -- until now. This did have an echo on the campaign street. After the BJP’s sweeping victories, the break-up of CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 INDIA BLOC DMK and allies set for clean sweep in TN PAGE 20 ASSEMBLY Two neighbours, one story: Change is here MORE ON PAGES 7-25 SUJIT BISOYI & SREENIVAS JANYALA BHUBANESWAR, HYDERABAD, JUNE 4 EVEN AS the BJP-led NDA suffered a setback at the national level, with its tally in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections falling well shortof exit-pollprojections,the silverliningforthealliancecame fromstrongperformancesinthe two state polls of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. In Odisha, the BJP was all set to form a majority government of its own for the first time, winning78outof 147seats.Theoutcome brings to an end the fiveterm reign of Naveen Patnaik's CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 ODISHA ASSEMBLY Party BJP 2019 2024 23 (32.49) 78 (40.04) BJD 112 (44.71) 51 (40.19) Cong 9 (16.12) Others 2 (6.68) 14 (13.29) 4 (6.48) ANDHRA ASSEMBLY Party 2019 2024 TDP 23 (39.17) 135 (45.60) JSP* 1 (5.53) 21 BJP 0 (0.84) 8 (2.79) YSRCP 151(49.95) 11 (39.37) Cong 0 (1.17) Others 0 (3.34) 0 (1.72) 0 (10.49) *JSP vote share included in others for 2024; (vote share in %) Quota anger to Dalit fears: BJP’s fall from 23 to 9 in Maharashtra SHUBHANGI KHAPRE MUMBAI, JUNE 4 MAHARASHTRA WAS considered a state which might make or break the BJP’s fortunes in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. And it held true to that, bringing down the party to nine seats from 23 in 2019, and stopping it well shortof amajorityinParliament. TheBJP’sMahayutialliesalso performed poorly, with the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena getting seven seats and Ajit Pawar’sNCPjust1.TheNDAthus wasreducedto17seatsoutof 48 in the state. In 2014, with the united Sena an ally, the NDA had won 43 seats. Factors behind result: Sympathy for Uddhav and Sharad Pawar The state never settled down courtesy the BJP after the party failed to secure a majority in the 2019 Assembly elections. However,whileitmayhavecome backintopowerbybreakingfirst theShivSenaandtheNCP,theBJP left the voters unimpressed. Instead, the sympathy factor seems to have benefited the original leaders of the Sena and NCP, from under whose noses their parties were seen as “stolen” – Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar, respectively. Uddhav, who was projected as the face of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition – or INDIA – in Maharashtra, won nine of the 21 seats it contested. This was two more than the Shindeled Sena, which contested 15 seats and won seven. The crowd at the Nesco complex where re-counting of votes of Mumbai North West seat was under way. Sankhadeep Banerjee MAHARASHTRA RESULTS MAHAYUTI BJP 9 Shiv Sena - SHS 7 NCP-AP 1 MVA Congress 13 Shiv Sena (UBT) 9 NCP- SP 8 Independent 1 TOTAL 48 In the split, the Shinde Sena, which walked away with most of the united Sena’s MLAs and MPs, had got both the name of the party and its symbol. Still, that didn’t come in the Uddhav faction’s way. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Photo finish in Mumbai North West: Waikar defeats Kirtikar by 48 votes SWEETY ADIMULAM & MOHAMED THAVER MUMBAI, JUNE 4 IN THE closest fight of 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Shiv Sena candidate Ravindra Waikar defeated Shiv Sena (UBT) candidate Amol Kirtikar by 48 votes in Mumbai North West constituency. The contest was a cliffhanger of sorts with the two candidates — Amol Kirtikar and Ravindra Waikar — celebratingvictorieswithinhours. It was, however, on a slender lead of 48 votes — 47 of which CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Disconnect on ground, ticket choice to jobs, caste: How BJP lost Uttar Pradesh plot SHYAMLAL YADAV & BHUPENDRA PANDEY NEW DELHI, LUCKNOW, JUNE 4 THAT THE road to Delhi runs through Uttar Pradesh is not lost on anyone. With 80 seats in a House of 543, UP has decided national outcomes and withstoodthetestof time,electionafter election. It propelled Narendra Modi’s risetopowerin2014,sending71 BJPMPstoLokSabha,andhelped him consolidate his grip in 2019 by electing 62 party candidates and two of ally Apna Dal (S). This time, UP was meant to set the ball rolling for an even larger mandate but by Tuesday evening, the BJP was struggling withleadsinonly33constituencies, losing ground to the SPCongress alliance. That Modi’s own victory margin of 1.52 lakh votes in Varanasi had dropped from 4.79 lakh in 2019 was a pointer to how the BJP had lost the plot in UP this time. Other indicators of the setback in the state – and nationally – were the defeats of Union Minister Smriti Irani in Amethi, and sitting MP Lallu Singh in Faizabad (Ayodhya), months after the Ram temple consecrationceremonythatcaptivated the nation. As the state prepared to vote in each of the seven phases, conversations from campaign trails and rallies, field visits to constituencies,bothurbanandrural, gave ample indication that the Samajwadi Party workers celebrate in Lucknow. Vishal Srivastav BJP could run into turbulence. Ahostof factorsseemedtobe atplay–theSPappearedtohave learnt from the BJP social engineering experiment of expandingitsbase;manyamongtheBJP candidates were not those the party and supporters wished; warnings of local disconnect were ignored in the belief that the‘Modimagic’wouldoverride dissent and complaints; the lack of cohesion with RSS workers was not hidden; there appeared to be over-reliance on the state machinery,ratherthantheparty organisation, for events, crowd mobilisationandvoteroutreach; and the disenchantment among the youth over the short-tenure Agnipath scheme in the armed forces and leak of recruitment exam papers became a crucial factor. Consider these: A plan gone awry In the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections as well as the 2017 and 2022 Assembly polls, the BJP re-invented its social en- gineering plan. A party that was seen as representing certain upper castes and certain families expanded its base by inducting people from different parties, different social groups, promoting and elevating them. As a result, the party did well in all the four elections. It had reduced the SP to the status of a MY (Muslim+Yadav) party. But this time, Akhilesh Yadav borrowed the approach, giving tickets to only five Yadavs CONTINUED ON PAGE 23