With the Bharatiya Janata Party falling well short of the half-way mark, and needing the support of whimsical allies such as N Chandrababu Naidu of the Telugu Desam and Nitish Kumar of the Janata Dal (U), India’s politics has retreated to the era of coalitions, one where plans for big-ticket reforms such as the Uniform Civil Code, “One Nation, One Poll” or amending the Preamble, will have to yield space to the compulsions of keeping governance on an even keel.

While there is no doubt that the National Democratic Alliance, cumulatively poised for an absolute majority, will form the government, its shape and direction will depend on how adroitly the dominant party within the grouping manages the demands of its partners. Certainly, the BJP is wise enough to know that the TDP and the JD (U) are not the most steadfast allies, led as they both are by politicians with Prime Ministerial ambitions. Thus the BJP will also work hard on keeping its smaller alliance partners within the flock, and meeting their relatively smaller demands, while seeking numbers from outside the pre-poll coalition to ensure a degree of stability. In any event, this outcome will impact the decisive manner in which the BJP has ruled for the past 10 years, whether it was in introducing reforms or in dealing with political opponents.

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An Opposition with more than 200 members in the lower house can make governance in the style the BJP has got used to quite difficult; compromise and accommodation will perforce be the new normal. At the same time, the BJP will need to introspect on where it went wrong, especially in Uttar Pradesh, where the Prime Minister saw his victory margin shrink substantially and the Faizabad (Ayodhya) seat seems to have been lost despite the temple brouhaha, and to a lesser extent in Maharashtra, West Bengal, Rajasthan and Assam. Having said that, the party will draw succor from its successes in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, and from the acceptance in the Kashmir valley of its narrative that politicians such as Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah are opportunists. The Opposition has no doubt got a shot in the arm, and there is no bigger gainer in this election than the Indian National Congress, a party written off by pollsters and pundits alike. As the natural leader of the Opposition, the party will have to practice its politics adroitly if it wishes to stake a claim to governance in 2029.

For the first time in recent memory, the party was accommodative of allies and stitched together a viable coalition in the form of the INDIA alliance. In the days and years ahead, it will have to remember these lessons, and eschew the desire to revert to its overbearing ways, especially in dealing with political partners. Among regional parties, the Trinamul Congress, the DMK, the Samajwadi Party, the Shiv Sena faction of Uddhav Thackeray and the NCP of Sharad Pawar all have reason to be pleased by the results. While further analysis will have to await a fuller disclosure of the results and the positions that political formations take, a final point must be made. Exit polls, pollsters and analysts who had projected numbers far at variance from the results have been left with egg on their faces ~ it is time to accept that their projections are at best semi-educated guesses and must be taken with dollops of salt