NEW DELHI: The biggest election of this year, the Lok Sabha polls 2024, turned out to be a speed bump for the BJP that failed to get a majority on its own. The party won 240 seats, falling short of the 272 needed for a majority. Meanwhile, the elections also showed the rise of regional parties emerging as pivotal players. The regional parties made significant inroads this year, gaining seats from BJP and Congress.
Here’s a look at how the regional parties performed this year:
Telugu Desam Party
N Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP) experienced a remarkable comeback in 2024. It registered an unprecedented electoral triumph in the Andhra Pradesh assembly elections and, at the same time, secured a significant position as a crucial ally in the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) at the Centre.
The party witnessed a successful turnaround from its 2019 setback, moving from only 23 assembly and three Lok Sabha seats to 164 assembly and 21 Lok Sabha seats. And all this came just months after party chief N Chandrababu Naidu was arrested in 2023
The formation of alliances with the Jana Sena and BJP, however, provided renewed vigour to the organisation.
Jana Sena Party
The year 2024 saw the dramatic resurgence of Jana Sena as a major political force in Andhra Pradesh. The year saw the perseverance of actor-politician Pawan Kalyan finally paying off with the party securing all the 21 assembly and two Parliament seats it contested in Andhra. The party registered a 100% strike rate in both the Lok Sabha and the assembly elections.
After losing both the seats in the 2019 elections, Pawan Kalyan this year finally got the deputy chief minister post.
His role in bringing N Chandrababu Naidu and the BJP into the same fold just months before the elections has also put him in the national spotlight.
Janata Dal (United)
The JD(U), under Nitish Kumar’s leadership, emerged as a standout performer this year. Unlike the performance of the Telugu Desam Party, which was expected to do well, the JD(U)’s result came as a surprise to many political analysts.
Earlier this year, both Prashant Kishore and former Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi had dismissed JD(U)’s prospects.
However, they won 12 of the 40 seats, equal to BJP’s seats in the state. As BJP failed to get a majority at the Centre on its own, Nitish Kumar became a kingmaker in the government formation.
Samajwadi Party
The Samajwadi Party (SP), under the leadership of former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, achieved its finest electoral performance in the Lok Sabha polls, securing a win in 37 constituencies out of 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh.
Among the major political parties, SP demonstrated the highest success rate, emerging victorious in 37 out of their 62 contested seats. In contrast, BJP managed to secure only 33 wins from the 76 constituencies they contested. Apart from BJP and Congress, SP also became the party with third-highest seats in Lok Sabha.
The party, however, suffered a setback in subsequent assembly bypoll where it gave away two of its seats to BJP. The BJP won six of a total of 9 seats while Akhilesh’s SP got only two seats.
Trinamool Congress
Trinamool Congress proved to be one of the strongest contenders against BJP, which is why by the year’s end, Mamata Banerjee staked claim to be the leader of the opposition INDIA bloc.
In Lok Sabha elections, the party won 29 seats and became the third largest party in the bloc after Congress and Samajwadi Party. Mamata’s party, in fact, gained eight seats from BJP in West Bengal.
In assembly bypolls which were held in November, Trinamool defeated the opposition, retaining five seats and wresting Madarihat from the BJP.
National Conference
The year 2024 saw Jammu and Kashmir finally voting for a government after a decade and the clear winner was Omar Abdullah and his party Jammu & Kashmir National Conference (NC).
In Lok Sabha elections, the party won two of a total five seats. The BJP also got 2 seats while one went to Congress.
The stunner was the assembly elections in which NC secured 42 of 90 seats making it the single largest party in the Union territory.
The assembly election, held for the first time since the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, was perhaps a redemption of sorts for the National Conference leader as he emerged winner on both the seats -– Ganderbal and Budgam, just months after a humiliating defeat in Lok Sabha.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam
MK Stalin led the Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA) to an emphatic landslide victory in the Tamil Nadu Lok Sabha elections, winning all 40 constituencies, including the lone Puducherry seat and decimating both principal opposition parties, AIADMK and BJP.
The DMK’s triumph came as the party focussed on welfare programmes implemented by their three-year administration.
The result was a major setback for AIADMK which hasn’t won any election since J Jayalalithaa’s death in 2016.
NCP-Shiv Sena
The two factions of the two parties that split in Maharashtra remained as relevant as ever this year. The year saw the two camps in a see-saw game.
Earlier in the year, in Lok Sabha elections, the Maharashtra Vikas Agadi (MVA) won 30 out of the 48 parliamentary constituencies in the state. Uddhav’s Sena won 9 vs 7 seats of Shinde’s Sena. In NCP vs NCP, Sharad Pawar got 8 seats and Ajit Pawar’s faction got only one seat.
It all, however, changed in a few months as the state voted for a new assembly. Out of 288 seats, the Uddhav Sena got 20 seats and Shinde’s faction emerged victorious with 57 seats. In the other fight, Pawar senior’s NCP won 10 seats while Pawar junior’s faction saw a turnaround with 41 seats.
Jharkhand Mukti Morcha
In a remarkable election outcome, Jharkhand ended its 24-year pattern of not re-electing the ruling government this year. The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM)-led INDIA alliance achieved a decisive victory, obtaining a two-thirds majority.
After being down in the dumps after an arrest earlier this year by the ED in a money laundering case, Hemant Soren orchestrated a stunning turnaround for the party in the assembly elections.
Soren’s JMM won 34 of the total 81 seats in the state while BJP managed to get 21 seats.
The losers
Though several regional parties emerged as key players in national politics, K Chandrashekar Rao’s BRS and Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal (BJD) not only lost the elections but were also decimated from the state. After losing power to Revanth Reddy last year, KCR’s party failed to win any seat in Lok Sabha elections this year. The BJP and Congress won 8 seats each while AIMIM won 1 seat.
BJD had ruled Odisha since 1997 but lost to the BJP this time breaking the 24-year-old reign of Naveen Patnaik as the chief minister. The BJP secured 78 seats in the 147-seat assembly. The BJD secured 51 seats way behind the majority mark of 74 and Congress secured 14 seats.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls also BJP performed well by securing 20 out of the 21 parliamentary seats of the state, the remaining one seat was won by Congress.
For the regional parties, 2024 will remain an important year as it marked their return on a national stage in a big way.
