The 2019 General Election verdict has equally stunned the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party which has returned with an even bigger mandate and the Opposition which was clearly not expecting to be trounced this badly. The Congress’s second consecutive defeat is a harder blow because as recently as November 2018, it had won three state elections. The party also mistakenly banked on the newly assertive leadership of Rahul Gandhi, who in the end could not even retain Amethi. The other big casualty of the election was West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who had deluded herself into thinking that the saffron wave would not reach her shores. The BJP crossed seemingly impossible hurdles: unrest in the North-East over the communally divisive Citizenship Bill, a deep agrarian crisis across much of India and the unhappiness of its allies. Vidya Subrahmaniam, Senior Fellow, The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy, New Delhi takes a look at the results to try and find answers to why the BJP won big and why the Opposition was challenged everywhere except in the three states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.