Lok Sabha Election Results 2024: Will Naidu & Nitish Call the Shots in Modi 3.0?

With BJP not winning a majority on its own, the key to a majority lies with Nitish Kumar and Chandrababu Naidu.

Nitish Kumar and N Chandrababu Naidu hold the key to the new government.

(Kamran Akhter/The Quint)

With the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) heading towards a slender majority, it seems clear that the BJP may not be crossing the halfway mark on its own. At the time of writing this story, the BJP had won 21 seats and was leading on 222 seats.

This would put the focus on the BJP's pre-poll allies. The biggest players in this space will be Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal (United) and N Chandrababu Naidu's Telugu Desam Party (TDP). At the time of writing this story, the JD-U was leading in 16 seats and the TDP in 13.

Between the two parties, they now hold the cards for government formation.

Why is this Win Important for JD-U and TDP?

For Naidu, the victory was even sweeter as his party is heading towards a huge majority on its own in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly elections. At the time of writing this story, the TDP was heading towards a 2/3rd majority in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly, though it fought in alliance with the Jana Sena Party and the BJP.

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Naidu re-joined the NDA in the run-up to the 2024 elections, six years after a bitter falling out in 2018. The TDP was decimated in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and the Assembly elections, which were held simultaneously. This win is a major comeback for him and will make him the CM of Andhra Pradesh for the fourth time.

For Nitish Kumar, it was a major gamble to leave the INDIA bloc and join the NDA. He was a leading light of the alliance and also the face of its caste census promise.

His gamble seems to have paid off as the NDA won over 30 seats out of Bihar's 40, though a little lower than 2019.

What Will They Do Next?

There is a great deal of speculation on whether the two parties will remain with the NDA or switch sides.

While Naidu doesn't need the BJP's support to form the government in Andhra Pradesh, it is unlikely that he would destabilise his winning coalition.

Nitish Kumar, too, may use his newly found leverage to get an assurance that the party won't disturb his government in Bihar and allow him to continue till 2025. If the BJP still remains insecure on numbers till then, Kumar may even insist on remaining the alliance's CM face for the 2025 elections.

However, given Nitish's track record, the possibility of him changing sides will always be there.

How Will This Impact NDA?

Assuming that both Nitish and Naidu remain within NDA, they are likely to have some impact on the Union government's policies. Both TDP and JD-U have never been pro-Hindutva even during their earlier tie-ups with the BJP.

Though the two parties aren't critically dependent on minority votes, they do seek support among minorities and won't be comfortable with a very strong pro-Hindutva stance.

In all probability, if they do continue in NDA, they will push for much more collective decision-making processes.

Both parties also have independent equations with sections within the BJP old guard as well as sections of the RSS. This would give them some additional leverage vis-a-vis PM Modi.