New Delhi, June 6 -- On June 9, 2024, Narendra Modi took oath in the forecourt of the imposing Rashtrapati Bhavan for the third time as Prime Minister. The grand ceremony, marking the return of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance to power, was held under the shadow of the BJP's diminished majority. For the first time since 2014, when it came to power at the Centre with a brute majority, the BJP's numbers had fallen short of the half-way mark, and it had to rely on coalition partners to keep its juggernaut rolling. The election of 2024 was as much a story of the BJP's decline as it was of the resurgence of the Opposition and the comeback of coalitions. If it felt vanquished, having shrunk from 303 to 240 in the 543 me...