Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu Supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) faced a shocking setback in the recent general elections. The BJP is still the most popular party in India, winning 240 seats in Parliament. However, they fell short of the 272-seat majority needed to form the government by themselves. This contrasts the past two elections in which BJP won comfortable majorities.

Although the BJP and its allies in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) secured 283 seats collectively, enabling them to form the next government and Modi as the PM once again, the BJP will now depend on coalition partners.

The opposition coalition INDIA alliance, led by the Congress party and includes Tamil Nadu’s DMK, Kerala’s CPI-Marxists and various others, won 223 seats, surpassing expectations. The BJP has also continued to struggle to penetrate states in South India, winning only 1 seat in Kerala and 0 in Tamil Nadu.

So, what does this result mean?

We speak to Subin Dennis, an economist & policy researcher from Tricontinental Research India.