The 2024 Lok Sabha election results - though under way at the time of writing - have been a surprise as far as EC trends show. While exit polls predicted a comfortable NDA win, at present the BJP-led coalition leads in 292 seats and Narendra Modi's has three in the kitty, while the I.N.D.I.A. bloc is leading in 229 seats, with Congress bagging the Jalandhar seat.
In the run-up to the elections, the BJP went big on its 'Viksit Bharat' pitch with their poll manifesto (Sankalp Patra) purportedly aiming to create a blueprint to have 'Viksit Bharat' by 2047.
"Viksit Bharat, or Developed India, is the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and represents a complete blueprint for the country's prosperity, not just a catchphrase. This vision will be a guiding principle for India during its Amrit Kaal", the outgoing PM's blog reads.
The Modi government, to highlight its achievements, had pushed 'Viksit Bharat' messages on Whatsapp, even after the Model Code of Conduct came into effect ahead of the polls, and got rapped by the Election Commission in the process, which ordered that the messages must stop.
However, the trends speak for themselves.
Incidentally, BJP in 2004 had also made a development-based pitch referring to the feeling of economic optimism in the nation- 'India Shining'.
The saffron party lost the election to Congress, managing to secure 138 seats, while the grand old party bagged 145.
Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh had referred to BJP's 2004 Lok Sabha election pitch of 'India shining' in the run-up to the 2024 general elections, noting that the country was likely to see a repeat of '04 and '09 as people were 'fed up' with BJP.
Advani, too, admitted that 'India Shining' as a phrase was 'inappropriate' for the election campaign since it gave the opposition a chance to "highlight other aspects of India's contemporary reality — poverty and uneven development, unemployment among the youth, problems faced by farmers, etc., which questioned our claim."
The 2004 general elections was also the first one held after the 2002 communal riots in Godhra which had left over 1,000 dead.
Ahead of the 2024 elections too Congress based its poll plank on a push for jobs, quotas, and a focus on women, and the marginalised. Further, the BJP faces several issues this time around.
Dr Iftekhar Ahmad Ansari, an associate professor at Aligarh Muslim University, noted to PTI that bread-and-butter topics like unemployment and inflation that the I.N.D.I.A. bloc raised, as well as its promise to hold a caste survey if voted to power, had cut into BJP's carefully crafted OBC vote bank.
He added that the BJP's social engineering, which focused on integrating various backward castes under the Hindutva fold was now under threat as traditional vote banks realigned.
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