Why '400 Paar' Is Ambitious, Yet Attainable, For The NDA

The ongoing 2024 general elections are gripped by one question: will the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its coalition confreres, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), cross 400 seats this time? There is even a catchy slogan for this goal: “Ab ki baar, 400 paar”, meaning, “This time, past 400 seats”.

For the BJP and its allies, 400 wins is an aspirational target, meant to motivate party cadres toiling under a fierce summer sun. It is also a mark of confidence, that the BJP is setting such towering targets for itself, and its allies, while gunning for a third straight term in office. It is good strategy too, because this public self-imposition of a lofty goal not only sets the narrative, but detracts from anti-incumbent criticism as well.

So, can the BJP and the NDA do it? After all, 400 is a humongous tally achieved only once before in India’s electoral history, by the Congress party in 1984, following the tragic assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

One way to find out how the probabilities are stacked, is by comparing the performance of the Congress in 1984 with that of the BJP in 2019. First, the wins:

In 1984, the Congress won 415 seats with 49 per cent of the popular vote; in 2019, the BJP won 303 seats with 38 per cent vote share. On both occasions, the two national parties swept the north, the west, the northeast, and Karnataka.

In 1984, the Congress was effectively blanked out in then-united Andhra Pradesh. In 2019, it was a repeat of 1984 for the BJP in the Telugu-speaking lands. Similarly in West Bengal, the Congress won only 16 seats in 1984, while in 2019, the BJP finally made an entry into the state, winning 18 seats. 

In Kerala and Tamil Nadu, then and now, the Congress has survived courtesy of regional outfits that provide crucial votes in bulk, without which, it would be nowhere. For the BJP, though, the deep south remains their final frontier.

Next, to gauge the robustness of performances in the two elections, state-wise vote shares were compared.

We see that the Congress polled over 40 per cent almost across the country, and more than 50 per cent in eight of the largest states (which accounted for 454 seats). Even in West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh, where the party’s performance was sub-par, it polled over 40 per cent.

So much so that it makes more sense to compare the Congress’ performance in 1984 with the NDA’s performance in 2019, rather than that of the BJP alone. This is brought out first by a table of wins and vote shares by state:

Yet even here, and considering the fact that the BJP is not aligned with either of the two principal Dravidian parties in Tamil Nadu, in 2024, or with the Shiromani Akali Dal in the Punjab, we see that the BJP is still not a major political force in over a hundred Lok Sabha seats.