Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
Speaker 2: It's been a nail biter of an election in India.
Speaker 2: Prime Minister Narendra Modi vownd to continue as a country's
Speaker 2: top leader even after his party lost its majority. Now
Speaker 2: Mody will have to rely on allies to form a government.
Speaker 3: Para Mataki.
Speaker 2: Diegana. That's Modi addressing supporters outside the headquarters of Badatia
Speaker 2: Junta Party Tuesday night. But this is far from the
Speaker 2: big win that Mody had promised and leaves India's politics
Speaker 2: in uncharted waters. Welcome to the Big Take Asia from
Speaker 2: Bloomberg News. I'm wanh today on the show what India's
Speaker 2: surprising election results mean for the country and the rest
Speaker 2: of the world. Hi, Sudi, it's a big day for India.
Speaker 2: Thanks for being here with us.
Speaker 4: Thank you, thank you, indeed, very very big day.
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Sudi run Jansen has covered India for nearly three decades.
Speaker 2: Tell me about what it's been like on the streets
Speaker 2: of Delhi today.
Speaker 3: Well, I was there for the you know, the opposition
Speaker 3: headquarters of the Congress party headquarters.
Speaker 4: Celebrations have already started there and rightly.
Speaker 3: So, because of Congress from being reduced to forty odd
Speaker 3: seats in the last election, really making a comeback, so
Speaker 3: a lot of celebration in the Congress headquarters. It's kind
Speaker 3: of rejuvenation of the Congress, so to say. Similarly, BJP
Speaker 3: emerging as a single largest party, which was expected, but
Speaker 3: the win not as big as the BJP has claimed.
Speaker 4: And therefore celebrations at the BJP headquarters.
Speaker 3: Also, this election in a way is a very very
Speaker 3: big surprise, you know, for the ruling party from Prime
Speaker 3: minister more than you, and more so if one was
Speaker 3: going only by the exit poll results that came out
Speaker 3: a few days ago.
Speaker 2: So Sudi, let's get inside the numbers a little bit.
Speaker 2: Prime Minister Mody and the BJP expected a much bigger win, right.
Speaker 2: Mody had even come out with a very specific goal
Speaker 2: for the number of seats that he said the BJP
Speaker 2: would win. How close did they get to that goalpost?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean then nowhere near the goalpost. If you
Speaker 3: look at the Prime minister's target, the target was four
Speaker 3: hundred seats for the National Democratic Alliance that he leads
Speaker 3: at near three hundred and seventy seats for the party itself.
Speaker 3: So it's quite upset for Prime Minister Modi and for
Speaker 3: the NDA alliance and quite and therefore quite a big
Speaker 3: win in a way for the opposition alliance, which by
Speaker 3: the way, was very very confident of doing well, although
Speaker 3: very few people believed them.
Speaker 4: The Opposition has done extremely well.
Speaker 2: Really no matter how you look at it. It's disappointment
Speaker 2: for Moody and for the BJP.
Speaker 4: The BJP wasn't kind of quite prepared for this situation.
Speaker 3: It was kind of expecting a handsome and overwhelming win.
Speaker 4: So there could be two possibility.
Speaker 3: The BJP may decide that, you know, they may they
Speaker 3: may want a change in the leadership, which would then
Speaker 3: open up, you know, entire new avenue with other leaders
Speaker 3: being considered.
Speaker 4: That is one possibility.
Speaker 3: The other possibility, of course, is that they go with
Speaker 3: the Prime minister. They go with Prime Minister Modi with
Speaker 3: the allies that they have right now.
Speaker 4: But then going forward.
Speaker 3: Prime Minister Modi will be a much more weakened prime
Speaker 3: minist We will not see the assertiveness that we have
Speaker 3: seen in the past. Also, with the Opposition becoming stronger,
Speaker 3: with having you know, having around two hundred lawmakers in
Speaker 3: the Parliament, they will be playing a much more aggressive role.
Speaker 3: It won't be like what we saw in between twenty
Speaker 3: eight nineteen and twenty twenty four, where the BJP could
Speaker 3: just you know, get any of the bills in the
Speaker 3: Parliament clear just because they had the numbers and it
Speaker 3: was a broof majority that they had.
Speaker 2: Now let's also put some perspective on this, right, this
Speaker 2: is still a historic win for Mody and the BJP.
Speaker 2: Moody is only the second politician to win three consecutive terms.
Speaker 2: Do these results you think take away some of his swagger?
Speaker 3: It very definitely takes a machine away from Moody because
Speaker 3: the Bartjanta Party, you know, never ever thought about a situation.
Speaker 4: Where they would need allies to form a government and
Speaker 4: run a.
Speaker 2: Government after the break. What India's election results mean for
Speaker 2: the world. India's election results are a stunning blow for
Speaker 2: Prime Minister or in their Modi. It was expected that
Speaker 2: Mody's BJP party would easily win a third term, putting
Speaker 2: him in office for another five years. We discussed the
Speaker 2: surprising results with Milan Vishnef, Senior Fellow and Director of
Speaker 2: the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International
Speaker 2: Peace Millan earlier this week. We had exit polls suggesting
Speaker 2: that Prime Minister Mody and the BJP were headed to
Speaker 2: an easy victory. Today things look so different. What's been
Speaker 2: your reaction as you've watched the results come in.
Speaker 1: Stunning, I think is the word that I and many
Speaker 1: other friends have been using. These results are stunning, not
Speaker 1: only because of the exit polls that we saw in
Speaker 1: the past couple days, but because of the surveys that
Speaker 1: were done even before campaigning started, and just the general
Speaker 1: narrative that this was really the BJP's election to lose.
Speaker 1: And now we're in any situation where, yes, Modi's coalition
Speaker 1: has a majority, it can form the government. But his party,
Speaker 1: the BJP, which has enjoyed its own single party majority
Speaker 1: in Parliament for two consecutive elections, was not able to
Speaker 1: meet that target, right, So it's going to be reliant
Speaker 1: on the help and assistance of some of its partners.
Speaker 1: So people have described this as a political earthquake, as
Speaker 1: an awakening. It's hard to find the superlatives to do justice.
Speaker 1: It really was just a stunning turn of events.
Speaker 2: Stunning is definitely the right word to describe it, and
Speaker 2: certainly for Mody and the bj party, it's obviously a disappointment.
Speaker 2: No matter how you look at it, what do these
Speaker 2: results tell us about how voters feel about Modi and
Speaker 2: the BJP at this point.
Speaker 1: Well, by and large, I would submit that Nearanther Modi
Speaker 1: is still personally popular. You know, it's nothing to sneeze
Speaker 1: at to win three consecutive elections, right, That's not something
Speaker 1: that a party has done under the same leader since
Speaker 1: Naeru after independence. Okay, so this is still an achievement,
Speaker 1: but it's certainly a personal setback because he had put
Speaker 1: his own political credibility on the line and has come
Speaker 1: up short, really for the first time. Despite the kind
Speaker 1: of glossy headline numbers, the Indian economy has not been
Speaker 1: firing on all cylinders. There has been some degree of
Speaker 1: disenchantment with individual BJP leaders that Nearanthomody has empowered at
Speaker 1: the state and local levels. There is a feeling that
Speaker 1: perhaps there was a certain amount of hubris or arrogance
Speaker 1: that had accumulated over the past ten years, which led
Speaker 1: this government to believe they could sort of do whatever
Speaker 1: they wanted without any checks and balances.
Speaker 2: Right, And of course, the context in a lot of
Speaker 2: elections is that the incumbent and the ruling party gets
Speaker 2: re elected if people are feeling good about the economy
Speaker 2: and their futures, right, and certainly I mean with this election,
Speaker 2: we know that unemployment, for example, has been a big issue,
Speaker 2: particularly among younger people in the country. Was that something
Speaker 2: that really drove voting at the polls and the results
Speaker 2: that we're seeing perhaps.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're going to have to wait for more
Speaker 1: systematic survey data to validate that, but I think anecdotally,
Speaker 1: if you look at a lot of the ground reporting
Speaker 1: in places where the BJP has suffered losses and take
Speaker 1: out through Fordesh for example, you know a lot of
Speaker 1: journalists who were traveling, you know, off the beaten path
Speaker 1: did since this feeling of you know, we've supported you
Speaker 1: for ten years, you being mothy, but the fruits of
Speaker 1: growth have not yet completely reached us. We appreciate that
Speaker 1: this government and this Prime Minister have invested in an
Speaker 1: expansion of the welfare net, so we now have greater
Speaker 1: access to things like bank accounts, to gas connections, to
Speaker 1: modern flush toilets, but that does not equal livelihoods. It
Speaker 1: doesn't equal good paying jobs.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that if I invest in my son
Speaker 1: or daughter's education they're going to be able to find
Speaker 1: gainful employment when they go out and join the labor force, right,
Speaker 1: So I think that that disenchantment has resulted in some
Speaker 1: of these seat tallies coming down for the BJP, which
Speaker 1: is why they end up in this situation of really
Speaker 1: needing friends to form this new government.
Speaker 2: And some of those issues were things that the BJP's
Speaker 2: opposition party talked about, I mean, running against Mody and
Speaker 2: the BGP this election cycle. Was this alliance of opposition
Speaker 2: groups in the country. How did they campaign against Mody
Speaker 2: and the BJP. What was their argument for why voters
Speaker 2: should choose them.
Speaker 1: The number one issue the India Alliance brought up was inequality,
Speaker 1: right that we fundamentally have a two speed society and
Speaker 1: system where the current politically economy of India has worked
Speaker 1: for the haves and it hasn't worked at all for
Speaker 1: the have knots. So the rich have gotten richer and
Speaker 1: the poort have either stagnated or suffered or decline right
Speaker 1: in terms of their living standards. And they tied this
Speaker 1: issue cleverly in hindsight, to the issue of caste, which
Speaker 1: is an emotionally charged issue. It's a you know, connected
Speaker 1: to a set of a pattern of deep seated, kind
Speaker 1: of rigid inequalities going back, you know, centuries in India
Speaker 1: to say that, you know, people who have been historically
Speaker 1: disadvantaged have not benefited from economic growth in the same
Speaker 1: way that the privileged casts have. I think that they
Speaker 1: were able to get some resonance on the ground with
Speaker 1: people who felt like, fundamentally this system is unfair and
Speaker 1: I'm at the receiving end.
Speaker 2: The other thing that defines Mody and the BJP has
Speaker 2: really been their Hindu first nationalist agenda, is that are
Speaker 2: we seeing now that maybe that's not enough to mobilize
Speaker 2: new voters, that that's resonating the way that they thought
Speaker 2: it would.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's right. I don't think though, that
Speaker 1: this vote is somehow a massive rebuke of that politics, right.
Speaker 1: I think that the ideological kind of midpoint, right, if
Speaker 1: you think about the median voter has probably moved in
Speaker 1: a more Hindu first way over the past ten years.
Speaker 1: So I don't know that there's outrage over pro Hindu
Speaker 1: policies as such. It's just that pro Hindu policies, at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, don't put food on the table, right,
Speaker 1: And It's notable that one of the biggest promises that
Speaker 1: this party made going into these elections was the guarantee
Speaker 1: delivery of free rations for eight hundred million Indians. Now,
Speaker 1: if the economy is firing on all cylinders, why would
Speaker 1: you need to make that promise? Right, So that shows
Speaker 1: that at the end of the day, you know, the
Speaker 1: political laws of gravity can only be defied for so long.
Speaker 1: Right there, there is something to that. It's the economy
Speaker 1: stupid tagline that we often bring about in elections, right,
Speaker 1: it's not totally irrelevant.
Speaker 2: Looking ahead, what does mody do? Now? What do you
Speaker 2: think comes next, especially in the next one hundred days.
Speaker 1: Well, let's not even get to the first hundred days.
Speaker 1: Let's get to the next you know, one hundred hours,
Speaker 1: because they have to solidify their coalition, right, because you
Speaker 1: can bet that the Opposition Alliance is making every phone
Speaker 1: call they can to the BJP's friends saying, look, if
Speaker 1: you leave them and join us, we'll give you a
Speaker 1: really sweet deal, right, dangling cabinet post and perhaps even
Speaker 1: prime ministerships. And so that's not a done deal yet, right,
Speaker 1: assuming though, that they're able to negotiate that, you know,
Speaker 1: I expect they are going to have to come together
Speaker 1: with their allies and put forward some kind of common
Speaker 1: minimum program, right, which is a common understanding of These
Speaker 1: are going to be our governing priorities. These are the
Speaker 1: highlights of our legislative agenda. You know, this is not
Speaker 1: something they have to do before because they could decide
Speaker 1: on their own. They didn't have to negotiate with anyone.
Speaker 1: Theyd'dt have to consult with anyone.
Speaker 2: Modi of course at this point, you know, still reeling,
Speaker 2: i'm sure from from these election results. What does he
Speaker 2: need to do? You know, assuming that he can put
Speaker 2: together coalition government, what does he really need to focus
Speaker 2: on in the immediate.
Speaker 1: I think you know their top number one, number two,
Speaker 1: number three objectives really has to be jobs. You know,
Speaker 1: this is a country that is what There's a lot
Speaker 1: of dynamism, there's a lot of aspiration. There are geopolitical
Speaker 1: wins that are moving in India's favor if it could
Speaker 1: take advantage of this unique window of opportunity right, and
Speaker 1: so that means getting your policies right such that you
Speaker 1: can actually create a robust domestic manufacturing sector right, and
Speaker 1: that involves getting your trade policy right, getting your tariff
Speaker 1: policy right, getting your factor market policy right, getting all
Speaker 1: of these things which have been a little bit muddled,
Speaker 1: frankly over the past ten years.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: And so I think if I we're advising this government,
Speaker 1: I would say, you know, that is rarely where you
Speaker 1: need to focus your attention. And if you can get
Speaker 1: that eight to nine percent growth sustained over a period
Speaker 1: of time, all of these other questions you have about
Speaker 1: social policy and welfare policy, and foreign policy and so
Speaker 1: on and so forth, they will fall into place.
Speaker 2: You mentioned foreign policy. What are the global implications of
Speaker 2: these election results?
Speaker 1: You think, well, I think you know, given geopolitical factors
Speaker 1: and what I mean specifically, there are you know, growing
Speaker 1: concerns about China's role in the world, the ongoing kind
Speaker 1: of reemergence of a global Russia, the decline of kind
Speaker 1: of American hegemony. I think India, no matter the shape
Speaker 1: or form of its government, still has a lot of
Speaker 1: room to maneuver, right, and so it is going to
Speaker 1: continue to be a valued and sought after partner by
Speaker 1: a multiplicity of countries east and West, and that's not
Speaker 1: going to change. But I do think it at the
Speaker 1: same time comes probably as a bit of a breadth
Speaker 1: of fresh air for a lot of foreign leaders who
Speaker 1: were very concerned about democratic backsliding, concerned about things like,
Speaker 1: you know, India's alleged involvement in the target assassination of
Speaker 1: democratic citizens on democratic soil abroad, and so I think
Speaker 1: this could act as a check on some of those excesses,
Speaker 1: and so I don't think these results will be entirely
Speaker 1: unwelcome in the corridors of power outside of India.
Speaker 2: By the way, if you want to learn more about
Speaker 2: India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and how he became so
Speaker 2: popular and polarizing, we have a two part series out.
Speaker 2: You can find The Rise of Moti on the Big
Speaker 2: Take Asia podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks
Speaker 2: for listening to The Big Take Asia podcast from Bloomberg News.
Speaker 2: I'm wanh. This episode was produced by Young Young Naomi,
Speaker 2: Jessica Beck and Adriana Tapia, who was mixed by Blake
Speaker 2: Maples and fact checked by Adriana. It was also edited
Speaker 2: by Caitlin Kenny and Daniel ten Kate, Naomi Shaven and
Speaker 2: Kim Gettelson are our senior producers. Elizabeth Ponso is our
Speaker 2: senior editor. And Nicole beemster Bower is our executive producer.
Speaker 2: Sage Bauman is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Please follow and
Speaker 2: review The Big Take Asia wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 2: It helps new listeners find the show. See you next time,