NEW DELHI (AP) — Since coming to power a decade ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been known for making big, bold and often quick decisions that he could easily implement thanks to the brute majority he enjoyed in India’s lower house.
In 2016, he yanked more than 80% of banknotes from circulation in an attempt to combat tax evasion, which sent shockwaves through the country and devastated citizens who lost money. In 2019, his government pushed through a controversial law that stripped disputed Muslim-majority Kashmir of special status, amid scant debate in parliament. And in 2020, Modi quickly introduced controversial agricultural reforms — although he had to drop them about a year later after mass protests by farmers.
In his expected next term as prime minister – when he will need a coalition to govern after results announced on Wednesday showed his Hindu nationalist party fell short of a majority – Modi may have to adapt to a style of governance he has little experience with. or what he has little desire for. for.
And it’s not clear how that will turn out.
“Negotiating and building a coalition, working with coalition partners, grappling with the tradeoffs that come with coalition politics – none of this fits well with Modi’s brand of assertive and stand-alone politics,” said Michael Kugelman, director of the Wilson Center South Asia Institute .
The surprise election results have overturned widespread expectations before the vote and the exit polls, which suggested a stronger outcome for Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. Ultimately, the party won 240 seats – fewer than the 272 needed to form a government on its own. But the coalition to which she belongs, the National Democratic Alliance, won a majority that should allow Modi to retain power in the world’s most populous country.
“India cuts off Modi,” read an Indian newspaper headline on Wednesday, referring to the 642 million voters and the opposing INDIA alliance, which stole seats from the BJP.
This is both a major setback and uncharted territory for Modi, who has never needed his coalition partners to govern since he first became prime minister in 2014. It has made him the most vulnerable he has been in his 23-year political career.
“These results show that the Modi wave has receded, revealing a level of electoral vulnerability that many could not have anticipated,” Kugelman said.
India has a history of messy coalition governments – but Modi, who enjoyed astronomical popularity, offered a reprieve and led his BJP to landslide victories in the last two elections. His supporters credit him with transforming the country into a rising global power, matched by a robust economy that is the fifth largest in the world.
However, that economy is in trouble – and solving it now requires partners. His opponents focused on vulnerabilities despite vibrant growth, such as unemployment, inflation and inequality – but his campaign offered few clues about how he might address them.
“Modi barely addressed the issue of unemployment – they skirted around it,” said Yamini Aiyar, a public policy scholar.
It is not just that Modi will have to adapt to relying on a coalition. The election has also weakened him after a decade of building a personality of absolute invincibility, said Milan Vaishnav, director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
At the heart of his governing style is his desire for control, critics say, adding that Modi has increasingly centralized power.
But to stay in power now, Modi will have to do everything he can to maintain a stable coalition, which means he may have to govern in a more collaborative way as the smaller regional parties in his alliance can make or break his government.
The BJP’s lackluster performance is “undoubtedly a slap in the face”, said Modi’s Vaishnav, who confidently predicted at his first election rally in February that the party would secure more than 370 seats – 130 more than it did.
The gap between the high expectations that Modi and others set for the BJP and its actual performance has made the victors look like losers and the defeated feel victorious.
Still, Vaishnav said, “we should not lose sight of the fact that the BJP is still in the driver’s seat.”
To be fair, his most consequential Hindu nationalist policies and actions are stuck – including a controversial citizenship law and a Hindu temple built on top of a destroyed mosque. Its critics and opponents denounce the policy, saying it has sown intolerance and fueled religious tensions against the country’s Muslim community – and has shaken India’s democracy, silencing dissent and pressuring the media .
Now his agenda and ability to push through policies in the future could face greater challenges, especially from a once deflated but now resurgent opposition.
The INDIA alliance, led by the Congress Party, is likely to have more power to apply pressure and push back, especially in Parliament where their numbers will grow.
“Modi is Modi. But I would say that with the attitude with which he has governed the country so far, he will definitely face some problems now,” said Anand Mohan Singh, a 45-year-old businessman in the capital New Delhi. “Some changes will be visible.”
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Associated Press video journalist Shonal Ganguly contributed to this report.
