We Thought We Knew the Voter. We Didn’t. | 2024: The Election That Surprised India by Rajdeep Sardesai | Reviewed by Sameer Gudhate

We thought we knew the result.

The pollsters thought they knew.

The television studios thought they knew.

The political class thought they knew.

Then the voters spoke.

And suddenly, almost everyone had to explain why they had been wrong.

That is where Rajdeep Sardesai’s 2024: The Election That Surprised India becomes fascinating.

Because this isn't merely a book about an election.

It is a book about how narratives are created, amplified—and sometimes shattered.

Sardesai takes us through the five-year journey from the 2019 Lok Sabha election to the 2024 verdict.

COVID.

The farmers’ agitation.

The rise and struggles of the Opposition.

Rahul Gandhi’s transformation.

The INDIA alliance.

The char sau paar campaign.

The battle for the states.

The Modi-Shah political machine.

The role of institutions and enforcement agencies.

And, running through all of it, one uncomfortable question:

Did we misunderstand the voter—or did we become too confident that we understood the voter?

That question stayed with me.

One of the book’s most memorable episodes is the collapse of pollster Pradeep Gupta’s election prediction on live television.

It is uncomfortable to watch.

But it is also deeply human.

Because getting an election wrong isn't simply about getting numbers wrong.

It exposes something more fundamental:

How easily confidence can turn into certainty.

And once certainty takes over, evidence often becomes secondary.

That observation extends beyond politics.

We do this all the time.

We surround ourselves with people who agree with us.

We consume information that confirms what we already believe.

And eventually, we mistake repetition for truth.

Elections have a particularly cruel way of exposing that mistake.

Sardesai is at his best when he reports, reconstructs and takes us into the political trenches.

His access to politicians, his state-by-state observations and his detailed account of the events between 2019 and 2024 give the book considerable value.

But there is another side.

This is not a politically neutral book.

Sardesai's criticism of the Modi-Shah establishment is unmistakable.

At times, it is powerful.

At times, it feels excessive.

And while the BJP and the government receive intense scrutiny, I sometimes found myself wanting the same level of interrogation when it came to the Congress and the Opposition.

Their organisational failures, leadership problems and political miscalculations deserved equally sharp examination.

That doesn't make Sardesai's account invalid.

It makes it an interpretation.

And perhaps that is exactly how political books should be read.

Not as scripture.

Not as propaganda.

Not as the final word.

But as one informed person's attempt to make sense of a complicated reality.

What I particularly liked is the book's reminder that India doesn't vote as one giant political block.

India votes through thousands of local calculations.

A national narrative can dominate television.

A political slogan can dominate social media.

An opinion poll can dominate headlines.

But somewhere in a constituency, a voter may be thinking about something completely different.

And that voter doesn't owe the narrative anything.

Maybe that is the real surprise of 2024.

The voters weren't necessarily unpredictable.

We were simply overconfident.

And that is a much more uncomfortable conclusion.

Because it isn't only about politics.

It is about human behaviour.

We like certainty.

We like predictions.

We like being told that our side is winning.

We like numbers that confirm our expectations.

But democracy doesn't work that way.

Sometimes the person who knows the least about what everyone else is thinking is the person most certain that he knows.

I finished this book disagreeing with parts of Sardesai's interpretation.

But I also finished it thinking about something bigger.

Can any journalist truly be neutral when writing about politics?

Or does every political narrative inevitably reveal something about the person telling it?

I don't have a neat answer.

And perhaps I don't need one.

Because the best books don't always settle an argument.

Sometimes they make the argument harder to settle.

2024: The Election That Surprised India did that for me.

It made me revisit not only the election...

but the way we form political certainty in the first place.

And perhaps the question we should carry forward isn't:

“Who really won?”

It is:

“Who was actually listening when India voted?”

A detailed, engaging and highly readable political chronicle—best read with an open mind and a healthy willingness to question both the author and yourself.

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