This year has been a roller coaster ride for political parties in India. In addition to the general elections, eight state elections were held, with honours shared between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)/National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the opposition Congress/INDIA bloc. The NDA gained a boost to its ‘Mission 400' before the general election with the joining of Nitish Kumar, Chandrababu Naidu, and Jayant Chaudhary. The opposition, however, delivered a blow to the BJP, preventing it from crossing the 300-mark, while the Congress improved its performance to nearly 100 Lok Sabha seats.

In subsequent state elections, while the INDIA bloc won in Jammu & Kashmir and Jharkhand, the BJP-led coalitions made a comeback to win Haryana and Maharashtra. Despite the seeming weakening of the BJP, the party made a strong comeback, with the opposition losing some of the gains it had made in the Lok Sabha election. Additionally, cracks began to appear within the INDIA bloc, as parties like the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) took independent stands on issues such as the Sambhal riots and the Bangladesh violence in Parliament, while Congress continued to focus other issues.

What are the lessons for political parties from 2024?

Parties cannot afford to be complacent. The BJP suffered from overconfidence during the Lok Sabha election when it launched Mission 400. This sent the wrong message to voters, supporters, and cadres, leading them to believe that the BJP would come to power regardless of their votes. As a result, voter turnout in strong booths and among anchor segments decreased. Similarly, the Congress party in Haryana, confident of victory due to its performance in the general elections and the support of key cohort groups such as farmers, women wrestlers, and youth, lost to the BJP's mighty machinery. The MVA, after winning 30 out of 48 seats in the Lok Sabha, also grew overconfident, assuming the vote was a rejection of the BJP's brand of politics. MVA leaders mistakenly took the mandate as a vote against the betrayal of Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar.........

© NDTV