The electorate in India has favored Narendra Modi and voted for him. Other parties might not be accepting this, but the Modi Wave was there which has changed the entire game of politics in India this time. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) managed to win 336 seats whereas the Congress won just 44 seats. Now, for the BJP, there is no need to seek alliances to form government. On the other hand, India’s largest and oldest party, the Congress, has not even won the number of seats required to form opposition party in Lok Sabha (50). As per the guidelines of the Parliament, to form the leading opposition party, the team must have at least 10% of the total seats in the Lok Sabha. It means that the opposition must have more than 54 seats out of 543 seats in Lok Sabha.
Though the Congress has the second highest number of votes but this does not make the party eligible to form the opposition. At present not even a single party has qualified to be the opposition leader.
In 16th Lok Sabha the Congress is confident to form a UPA opposition, but in case they fail to do so they can think of supporting a third-front opposition. The AAP, which won just four seats, said that they would not support a third front opposition in any manner.
There is a possibility that new Lok Sabha may have many parties in the opposition but without an opposition leader. Each party will have its own leader.
This is not happening for the first time in India. There was no leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha during 1952-77. The Lok Sabha had its first leader of the opposition in 1977 under the Salary and Allowances of Leaders of Opposition in Parliament Act, 1977. In the 1952 elections, the CPI held 16 seats out of 489, and was the only other party.
It is wrongly believed that the first Leader of the Opposition in India was from the CPI; actually, the first leader of the opposition was from the Congress.
