Narendra Modi 2.0: Bigger, louder

Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance has comprehensively won the 2019 general elections with BJP alone winning or leading in 299 seats, more than in 2014, enough to run a simple majority government. The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance was decimated as it won or was leading in just 91 seats in the 543-seat Lok Sabha. Others have won or were leading in 102 seats.

The silent NaMo wave, which Modi had claimed existed but was not being seen by his critics, was so strong that it swept away Congress president Rahul Gandhi in his family borough Amethi in Uttar Pradesh. Rahul conceded defeat to BJP's Smriti Irani. Even the strong-on-paper Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party alliance could not work its magic in Uttar Pradesh where the BJP and its allies won 61 seats — less than the 73 won in 2014 — but far more than 20 the critics were giving the party. SP-BSP together could manage only 18 seats between them.

The victory was further sweetened as BJP made massive inroads in Bengal where it locked horns with Trinamool Congress led by the firebrand Mamata Banerjee. The BJP won 18 seats there vis-à-vis just 2 in 2014, while TMC was limited to just 22.

More importantly, the BJP won back the Hindi heartland that it had lost to the Congress in state assembly polls held months ago. In Bihar, BJP's alliance with Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal United worked like a charm, helping them to win 38 out of 40 LS seats.

In Rajasthan, the BJP won all 25. In Madhya Pradesh, where the contest between Congress's Digvijaya Singh and BJP's Pragya Thakur had taken centre stage, the saffron party had won or was leading in all 29 seats.

The anti-Congress wave swallowed even Jyotiraditya Scindia, who lost in Guna, where the Scindias were never defeated. Thakur too won by a comfortable margin against Diggi Raja. In Chhattisgarh, where Congress had won handsomely months ago in the state assembly polls, BJP made a spectacular comeback winning nine out of 10 seats.

In Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah, the party was winning or leading in all 26 seats. Shah, who is contesting from Gandhinagar, was elected to the Lok Sabha by more than 5 lakh votes. In neighbouring Maharashtra, the party joined hands with blow-hot-blow-cold Shiv Sena and reproduced the 2014 magic — winning 41 out of 48 seats. 

It was only in the south that the party couldn't replicate what it did in the rest of India. In Tamil Nadu, the Dravid Munnetra Kazhagham-led alliance won 37 out of 38 LS constituencies. In Kerala, where Rahul Gandhi managed to win a seat for himself in Wayanad, the Congress-led alliance put up its best show — winning 19 out of 20 seats.

All in all, the Modi-Shah duo laid to rest the previously held notions over anti-incumbency, caste arithmetic, worries over economy, farmer distress, jobs, etc. to ride the party into a spectacular victory, a repeat performance of 2014 which a few months ago even the party would not have believed was possible.