Hyderabad: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has managed to comfortably sail through and win the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Though it faced severe defeats in states like Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra, the NDA actually made up for the losses by winning about 50 MP seats in south India, allowing it to cross the halfway mark in the Parliament.
In fact, the 16 seats (leading, at the time of writing this) won by the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in Andhra Pradesh is also a big factor in helping the BJP in the south, which also managed to win three Parliamentary seats on its own thanks to the TDP’s support. Unlike the massive victory predicted by exit polls, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government managed to just scrape through with its NDA partners by winning a little over 290 seats.
The Congress-led INDIA alliance has a few over 230 seats overall. In Andhra Pradesh, which has 25 Lok Sabha seats, the TDP, BJP and Pawan Kalyan-led Jana Sena Party (JSP) managed to win 16, 3 and 2 seats each respectively. This is crucial for the BJP’s win in south India. The YSR Congress Party (YSRCP), which won 22 seats in 2019, has been reduced to just 4.
In the neighbouring Telangana, the BJP managed to double its tally from 4 in 2019 to 8 this time, with about 35% of the vote share, helping the BJP further improve its tally in the south. This was however expected, as the saffron party also managed to double its vote share in the 2023 Telangana state elections to 14%, against 7% in 2018.
Note: While the NDA is leading in most of the close to 50 MP seats and is on course to win, the final tally may vary a little in case of close contests.
In Telangana, the BJP managed to win the Secunderabad Lok Sabha seat for a third time since 2014, with state party president G Kishan Reddy on course to win it with it with over 4.7 lakh votes. The Congress in Telangana and BJP managed to win 8 seats each, while the AIMIM retained the Hyderabad Lok Sabha seat for the fifth time. The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) however drew a blank, while it managed to win 9 seats in the 2019 elections.
Another state that majorly helped the BJP in south India this Lok Sabha elections is Karnataka, where the BJP and Janata Dal (Secular) both won 17 and 2 Lok Sabha seats out of 28. The Congress is on course to win 8 seats there, which is still better than the one seat it had won in 2019. In Kerala, the BJP also made history by winning its first ever seat – Thrissur – bagged by actor Gopi Suresh.
Advantage for Naidu in Andhra
All in all, the BJP and NDA together managed to bag 49 seats in the south, with Tamil Nadu being the exception. More importantly, Narendra Modi will also have to rely in Naidu, and Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) from Bihar to stay in power (BJP and JDU won 24 seats out of 39), as the BJP did not cross the halfway mark on its own.
This means that Naidu, for his support, can now ask or even arm twist the BJP into getting what he wants if it comes to that. The development is interesting as it was perceived that Naidu was made to wait till the very end before joining the NDA again. With his support being crucial for the BJP government’s survival, the south Indian state once becomes an important part in national politics.
