The 2004 Federal Election and the Reshaping of Governance in India

John McGuire focuses on the 2004 federal election and the reshaping of governance in India. Whereas the BJP/NDA coalition was predicted to win well over 200 seats, it finished with 185 seats. The INC and its allies in contrast won a total of 217 seats, which was well in excess of what was predicted. What the election did was to expose the suspect nature of the way that the BJP-led NDA coalition government had governed between 1999 and 2004. When the BJP/NDA coalition lost the right to form a government in India in May 2004, it recognized that its plan to take control of the Indian political process had been pushed backwards. Concerns about Hindutva were central to the relative fragility of the NDA coalition. The BJP pursued Hindutva policy to rewrite the history of India so that it reflected the salience of Hinduism in that story.