BJP's bet on Modi's popularity 'backfired'
While Modi is likely to win a third term in office, the mega election cast as a referendum on his personality seems to be a defeat for the prime minister.
Early leads in the election are showing fewer seats for the BJP than projected despite Modi being the frontman of the electoral campaign.
"They went from using Modi as the main argument to using him as the sole argument," political analyst Gilles Verniers told Al Jazeera. "And that backfired."
While Modi is likely to win a third term in office, the mega election cast as a referendum on his personality seems to be a defeat for the prime minister.
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The BJP is now likely to retain a majority as an alliance, thanks to the Janata Dal-United and the Telugu Desam Party, but this means that they will be beholden to their coalition partners for the first time.
"This is a setback," Verniers said. "The options [before the BJP] now are to be more conciliatory and share power, or to double down on authoritarianism, which is the path they have taken over the past few years."
'Unemployment trumped BJP in a way they didn't expect'
Political analyst Sanjay Kapoor told Al Jazeera that it seemed like a done deal for the BJP, but results did not follow what was projected.
"They gave the impression that they will romp through on the glow of the Ram temple that they built in Ayodhya," he said.
"But as the campaign started warming up and people started going to the ground, talking to reporters – they realised there were many compelling issues like price rise, like cost of living," he also said.
"And the most compelling was the unemployment and that trumped the BJP in a way they did not expect."
