The 2019 Lok Sabha Verdict

The 2019 electoral mandate is historic, in several ways. While taken nationally, it is a vote for a second term for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government. It also indicates that alliance arithmetic by itself does not guarantee a victory. In an important way, understanding the 2019 verdict requires one to focus on the different regions of India and the distinct differences across states within a region (Shastri et al 2019). In keeping with past trends, any analysis of a Lok Sabha election results requires one to look at the trends in each state (Kumar and Sisodia 2018; Kumar 2017; Shastri 2009).

This verdict points out to a clear difference in the intensity of the BJP victory. In North, West and Central India (save Punjab), the election clearly saw an entrenched BJP that swept the region. Especially where it was in a direct contest with the Congress it did exceptionally well. Eastern and north-eastern India saw an expanding BJP, with the party asserting its key role in the North East and emerging as the key competitor to the state ruling party in West Bengal and Odisha. The South (save Karnataka) continued to elude the BJP. The battle for claiming the lead opposition space in Telangana is on with both the BJP and the Congress having halted the progress of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi. Tamil Nadu saw the domination of state-based parties, as did Andhra Pradesh. Kerala continued to witness a straight bipolar fight with the BJP pushed to a distant third position.