The Indian election results dealt a strong blow to Mr. Modi’s economic and political plans

The election results in India turned out to be a major political blow For Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling party, it also has important implications for how he plans to run the country, observers say.

Modi did not get it landslide victory that was widely predicted by opinion polls before the results were in. Instead, he will enter his third term with a much weaker mandate than initially anticipated.

His Bharatiya Janata Party lost dozens of seats, bringing its expected total to 240 – lacks a complete majority in the country’s lower house.

It was a stark difference from the sweeping mandate of 2014 and 2019, when the BJP won 282 and 303 seats respectively, achieving a majority on its own.

Modi presented a brave front, hailing his election victory as “the first time after 1962 that an incumbent government won for the third time,” in a speech at the BJP headquarters in New Delhi on Tuesday.

He added that this will be the new ‘Golden Chapter’ in India’s development.”

But the outcome is more complicated for Mr. Modi, who will be forced to rely on coalition partners for the first time in his decades-long rule — and some of them may not share the country’s economic or political agenda with him.

“We are in uncharted territory,” Neelanjan Sircar, a senior fellow at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi, said Wednesday.

“We have never seen the Modi government act in a coalition,” Sircar told CNBC. We know that this party has taken decisive, centralizing actions.”Squawk Box Asia.”

“Can they adjust in the ways that a party needs and a leader needs to do when you lead a coalition?” he said, adding Modi is likely to have an “uncomfortable relationship” with his alliance partners.

“It’s his face on everything and he’s lost it in the core northern states,” Roche, president and global strategist at Independent Strategy, told CNBC. That’s important because what it tells you is that something is wrong.”Asian street signs” on Wednesday.

That shows Modi’s Hindu nationalist ticket has not worked in “Hindu nationalist areas,” he said, adding that he hopes that Modi will now rule in the interest of economic reform.

The BJP’s performance in Uttar Pradesh, which has been a bastion of the ruling party for the past decade, has caused one of the biggest shocks of the election. The party has suffered some major losses here, with the BJP’s political heavyweights like Smriti Irani and others, lost seats.

In another defeat in Ayodhya, the BJP lost an important constituency of Faizabad just a few months after Mr. Modi inaugurated it Newly built Ram temple. This controversial temple was built on the site of a mosque razed by Hindu extremists. analysts argue aimed at energizing the Hindu voter base.

In the previous two elections, Sircar said, the BJP effectively kept “India’s Hindi heartland on lockdown”.

This time they faced very significant losses in three of them – Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, the analyst said, adding that this was mainly due to overreaction of the Modi government.

Before the election, “we arrested two chief ministers. We have many other political opposition leaders facing investigative agencies… in some places, people will say that they constitutional concerns,” Sircar noted, adding that the Government had crossed many “red lines”.

Critics have pointed out that under Mr. Modi’s strong rule, India has seen the signs democratic regression in the face of persistent repression against the rights of minorities and civil society.

Going into the election, Mr. Modi’s reputation was still maintained despite India’s economic problems such as high youth unemployment rateinflation and income inequality.

While Modi has retained his charisma, he has lost his “aura of electoral omnipotence,” said Michael Kugelman, director of the Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute. said in a post on X.

“It was a big part of what has long defined him as a leader,” he said, adding it was a “humbling moment” for both the BJP and Modi.

Speaking as the results were still being announced on Tuesday, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi announced the election results is a victory for the people and democracy of India.

“This is a fight to save the constitution,” he said while addressing a press conference in New Delhi, adding it sends a strong message to Prime Minister Modi that “people don’t like the way he run the country”.

Roche said the election results were “good news” for Indian democracy overall.

“You want India to be a real democracy – not something dreamed up on a populist platform, which would ultimately be more damaging to economic performance.”