‘BJP’s Defeat in Ayodhya…’: How Foreign Media Reacted to Lok Sabha Election 2024 Results

The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) emerged as the largest coalition in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, surpassing the majority mark of 272 seats. However, the BJP fell short of its goal of securing 370 seats independently and over 400 seats with its allies. According to the Election Commission of India (ECI), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which was seeking a third consecutive term and its third straight single-party majority, secured 240 seats. This put the BJP well ahead of the Congress, the largest opposition party, which won 99 seats. Despite this, the BJP lost 63 seats compared to its 2019 tally, having won 282 seats in 2014. Meanwhile, the Congress gained 55 and 47 more seats than it did in 2014 and 2019, respectively.

Here’s how foreign media reacted:

1. Washington Post: “The populist prime minister has never failed to secure a majority in state or national elections over a 23-year political career and has enjoyed landslide wins in previous elections. But now Modi seems to be facing a political setback. Early vote tallies show more-tepid support for his Hindu nationalist party, piercing the air of invincibility around the most dominant Indian politician in decades.”
2. New York Times: “The aura of invincibility around Narendra Modi has been shattered. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party was poised to lose its parliamentary seat in Ayodhya on Tuesday. It was part of a sweeping electoral setback across Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, where early results showed the BJP was set to fall nearly 30 seats short of its tally in the last general election in 2019.”
3. Dawn: The Pakistan-based media portal headlined its coverage of the Lok Sabha Election 2024 result with “India vote count shows Modi alliance winning surprisingly narrow majority.” The article noted, “BJP concedes defeat in Ayodhya where Ram Temple was inaugurated; Rahul Gandhi says voters have punished BJP.” The loss of the Faisalabad seat in Uttar Pradesh, the constituency that houses the prestigious Ayodhya Ram Mandir project, came as a shock to many.
4. Al Jazeera: “There will be challenges coming in the parliament. There will be bills that will have to be passed, and there is bound to be a great amount of compromise that he will have to make. In the past, when he had a brute majority, he would not be compromising. He always projected himself as somebody very strong who will not compromise,” an analyst told the news organization.
5. Financial Times: “The results would be a return to coalition politics. Many Indians had expected a clear Modi victory in an election seen as a referendum on his decade in office and a campaign focused largely on his personality,” the article read.
6. BBC: “Supporters claim he is a strong, efficient leader who has delivered on promises. Critics allege his government has weakened federal institutions; cracked down on dissent and press freedom; and that India’s Muslim minority feels threatened under his rule.”