On June 9, 2024, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his handpicked Council of Ministers were sworn into office to lead India’s newly elected government following the country’s eighteenth general election. While the cast of characters occupying the topmost ranks of the government closely resembled the previous Modi administration, which held office between May 2019 and May 2024, a not-so-subtle shift took place beneath the surface.
As nationwide voting kicked off over forty-four days and in seven phases, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was widely expected to win a third consecutive single-party majority in India’s lower house of Parliament (the Lok Sabha). This expectation was based on two distinct data points. First, preelection surveys fielded in early 2024 were unanimous in predicting a BJP landslide. For instance, the India Today Mood of the Nation poll, released in January 2024, projected that the BJP would win 304 of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha, with its National Democratic Alliance (NDA) partners chipping in another 31 seats.1 Top BJP officials themselves widely held the notion of an election landslide: the party went to the polls touting the slogan “Abki Baar 400 Paar” (“this time, more than 400 seats”), projecting confidence that the BJP and its allies would clinch a supermajority in the parliamentary election.2
Second, exit polls suggested that while such lofty ambitions might be out of reach, the BJP would face little trouble securing a clear majority.3 In reality, however, the final vote count was quite different. Ultimately, the BJP won just 240 seats out of the 543 up for grabs, short of the 272 seats needed for a parliamentary majority and 63 seats fewer than it won in 2019. For the first time since Modi catapulted to power in 2014, the BJP is reliant on its NDA coalition partners to stake its claim to the government. In the end, the NDA’s 293 seat total provides the BJP with more than enough support to govern comfortably. The opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), in turn, far exceeded expectations, capturing 234 seats. The coalition, comprising three dozen parties, was significantly boosted by a reversal of fortune for the Indian National Congress (Congress Party); the once-dominant national party won 99 seats, a near doubling of its 2019 tally and the first sign in a decade of its national renewal.
On paper, at least, these results heralded a return to coalition politics—marking a sharp break with the previous decade of unquestioned BJP single-party dominance. Between 1989 and 2014, India experienced a “coalition era” of national politics in which no single party was powerful enough to form the government on its own.4 For a quarter-century, governments were formed through a combination of pre- and post-election alliance arrangements, diffusing power toward smaller regional parties whose support was essential for national parties to govern. The centrality of regional parties to government formation also enhanced the status of India’s state governments in the relative power balance between New Delhi and state capitals.
The BJP’s historic election triumph in 2014 put a decisive end to the coalition period by securing the first parliamentary single-party majority in three decades, winning 282 seats. No party had achieved such a milestone since 1984, when the Congress Party won a landslide victory in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination. The BJP’s subsequent general election victory in 2019 only bolstered its numbers, cementing it as the new dominant party. As one of the authors has previously argued, the return of a dominant party in 2014 and the dramatic expansion of the BJP’s electoral footprint marked the beginning of a new electoral system in India known as the “fourth party system.”5
The resurgence of coalition politics in New Delhi and the presence of a much stronger political opposition together raise the question of whether the 2024 verdict reflects a repudiation of the fourth party system and a reversion to a more decentralized, fragmented era.6 Drawing on newly available data from the 2024 general election, this paper argues that, while the 2024 verdict represents a curtailing of the BJP’s dominance, many attributes of the fourth party system remain intact. Although the BJP fell short of a parliamentary majority, it remains a system-defining party. By and large, parties contest elections in India in favor of, or in opposition to, the Modi-led BJP. Furthermore, the BJP remains the single largest party in terms of its presence in the Lok Sabha, the Rajya Sabha (India’s upper house), and the country’s various state assemblies. While the recent general election results produced a greater degree of political fragmentation, stimulated more intense political competition, and lacked a coherent, all-India narrative, prevailing political conditions have more in common with a dominant party system than truly decentralized coalition politics. Nevertheless, the results of the 2024 general election demonstrate a weakening—if not quite a reversal—of several pillars underlying the fourth party system.
The following sections lay out the core principles of the fourth party system and how they differ from past systems. Then, they use data from the 2024 election to evaluate whether there are signs of reversal, either indicating a transition to a new system or a reversion to an older one. This paper examines principles underlying the fourth party system including the presence of a dominant party, rising political centralization, declining political competition, a nationalization of electoral politics, heightened voter mobilization in general elections, and changes in caste mobilization and representation. Finally, it enumerates potential factors that could disrupt the existing system.
Evolution of India’s Party Systems
Building on a framework developed and popularized by political scientist Yogendra Yadav, India has arguably witnessed four “party systems” since its independence from the British Raj in 1947.7
The first party system, dominated by the Congress Party, was in place from the time of independence until the elections of 1967, the year when the Congress Party’s grip on power in India’s states began to sharply wane.8 In the second party system, stretching from 1967 to 1989, the Congress Party largely retained its controlling position at the center even as its popularity in national terms gradually declined. The only time its hold on power in New Delhi slipped was when it was unceremoniously voted out of office in 1977—for a brief two-year period—in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s twenty-one-month period of emergency rule. India’s third party system, in place from 1989 to 2014, was synonymous with an era of coalition politics and the absence of a core political party around which the party system revolved.9 The 2014 election ushered in a new, fourth party system and a return to a dominant party era, with the BJP occupying the central position previously held by the Congress Party.10
The distinctiveness of the fourth party system is readily apparent when contrasted with the core principles of the third party system. During the coalition era, no single party was strong enough to serve as the central organizing pillar of Indian politics, and elections were marked by increasing party fragmentation, intensifying political competition, and a federalization of national politics. The third party system was also characterized by a new political sociology in which lower castes gained political representation, largely at the expense of historically dominant upper and intermediate castes.
Each of these principles was challenged by the resurgence of the BJP as a dominant national force in the post-2014 era.11 In this period, the BJP became the undisputed central pillar around which politics was organized. While it is certainly true that the BJP governed with coalition allies, it was not dependent on them for government survival. Further, the trends of growing fragmentation, rising competition, and federalization all exhibited sharp signs of reversal. While lower castes and previously disadvantaged groups continued to exert new influence in politics, the axis of competition shifted from broad umbrella caste categories to jati (individual caste)-specific combinations. Notably, the BJP painstakingly built electoral coalitions in key states by appealing to nondominant jatis that had not necessarily benefited from government affirmative action programs. These nondominant groups argued that the bulk of the gains emanating from government schemes and benefits had flowed to a small number of dominant jatis that served as the core votaries of key regional opponents to the BJP.
The following subsections review the principles underpinning this third party system, describe how those principles are at odds with the prevailing trends in the fourth party system, and then assess whether the 2024 general election represents a departure from those dynamics.
Presence of a Dominant Party
The third party system was characterized by the absence of a single party serving as the defining pole of India’s political landscape. The Congress Party had played that role in the decades prior to 1989, helming every government between 1952 and 1989—with the sole exception of the Janata Party government, which briefly held office between 1977 to 1979. But its declining national popularity, the rise of the BJP, and the growth in regional competitors meant it could no longer effectively play that part.
In 1998, the BJP under former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, with the support of its NDA allies, tasted national power for the first time. The BJP’s inaugural governing foray lasted only thirteen months, until a key ally pulled its support and fresh elections were called. Following the 1999 elections, the BJP formed another coalition government, once more under Vajpayee’s leadership, that remained in power until 2004. That year, in a surprise electoral verdict, the Congress Party emerged as the single largest party in Parliament and formed a wide-ranging coalition government with its United Progressive Alliance (UPA) partners. It repeated this feat in 2009, ruling for a decade under prime minister Manmohan Singh.
In the next election in 2014, the BJP reached new heights: it won a majority of 282 seats in the Lok Sabha, marking the beginning of a new party system in which it, not the Congress Party, became the system-defining party. The 2014 election was historic on several counts: It was the first time a party won a parliamentary majority in three decades, and it was the first time ever a party other than the Congress Party could claim this distinction. In the 2019 election, the BJP defied challenges of anti-incumbency and grew its tally to 303 seats, expanding its political footprint.12 Against this backdrop, there is no question that the 2024 general election represents a stunning setback for the party. Although the BJP contested 441 seats, its highest number in decades, its candidates emerged victorious in just 240.
On the surface, this statistic alone suggests major cracks in the edifice of the fourth party system. But a closer look at the data suggests that, despite experiencing a setback, the BJP retains its dominant position at the helm of the fourth party system.
Disaggregating the BJP Vote
For starters, the BJP’s vote share in 2024 declined by less than one percentage point in 2024 relative to 2019 (36.6 versus 37.3 percent) (figure 1).13 This suggests that, on an all-India level, its popularity has not changed significantly. However, its seat tally dramatically dropped (from 303 in 2019 to 240 in 2024), indicating that what has shifted is the regional distribution of that support.