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Policy Paper
India’s general elections led to a political reconfiguration of unprecedented magnitude, for the first time since the 2014 elections that brought the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will preside over a rare, third consecutive term in power, making him only the second Indian prime minister to do so after Congress leader Jawaharlal Nehru in 1962. However, although Modi has secured a third term, the BJP failed to achieve an outright parliamentary majority, falling well-short of its 370 target (400 with coalition partners) in the lower house of parliament. While the BJP will have to work with its allies from the NDA to govern India for the next five years, the 2024 election results may usher in a new political cycle of rivalry between the Indian right and left, through the prism of economic reforms, societal reforms and the new statute of India in the global balances.