There is too much Rona-Dhona on Modi did not do this or did this wrong or Shah did not do this or did that wrong and so on and so forth. Most of the discussion is internal rona-dhona. Some totally baseless.
Here are the places that BJP as a partyAdd lost seats:
Karnataka + Mah + Raj : 25 seats
UP : 35 seats
West Bengal : 10 Seats
Punjab + Haryana : 10 Seats
Add it all up and add it 240 and BJP on its own would have crossed 310+.
Biggest was the loss in UP with 35 seats. Seats like Amethi, Ayodhya were lost. BJP just made it through in Varanasi (yes!) and Meerut etc.
1. If you look at the places where BJP lost, it is either very feudalistic, very parochial and very backward regions. Yes, several parts of Haryana and Punjab are *backward* and *feudal* (look at child sex ratio)
2. Punjab and Haryana can be ruled out due to Khalistan + Farm law issue. Still, the voters there were dumb enough to go for divisive and revdi politics. They are fattened up on Malai and they want more malai.
3. West Bengal is so poor and so backward that anyone handing out a Rs. 1000/- dole per month is god (or goddess). Communists, Congress and MaoMata have cottoned on to that fact.
4. UP is derided as cow belt. In this election, that derision has some merit.
Let's take UP to start with (similar things can be mirrored in Raj_Ktka_Mah). The development of UP (Amethi, Ayodhya, Varanasi, Meerut etc) bypassed the feudal structure. The castes plugged into the feudal structure (Brahmins, Rajputs, Land owners, Yadavs etc) did not get around to take in their malai. Forget the malai part, they could not even get to show their authority on "getting things done".
Take for example a simple thing: A passport. Folks here can relate to it, that is why I bring it up. Imagine the boot licking and chai-paani to all and sundry to get a passport before? And nowadays, any one can get a passport. UPI Payment.
Take the UPI payment itself, all hafta vasooli is gone. Wait, if you are a lower middle class or lower class, you can actually get a Mudra loan and bypass the feudal setup.
Same goes for law and order. Thanks to Yogiji and his bull dozer.
Take the case of Amethi. It was a $hit0l3 before Smriti'ji stepped in. Lot of things like: setting up soil testing lab, fruit tree distribution, neem tree distribution, significant upgrade to gauriganj station (it was crap before), central school, girl college, petroleum university, dam construction on gomti river, upgrade to millitary school and lots and lots.
But then several intermediaries were cut out from the equation. Same goes in Ayodhya and Varanasi and several other places incl. meerut in UP. Sometimes the intermediaries are not in for any malai, they just want to gain influence by showing that they got the work done for a future scratch my back. In Varanasi redevelopment, lot of them had vested interest in using temples as toilets. All of those augean stables was cleaned by Modi.
In Rajasthan, it is even worse. The feudal society is so entrenched that it will take a generation or more to come out. Or may never come out.
On top of it, Irani, Modi and Shah are outsiders. Rank outsiders. Anyway, the intermediary class of people thought they will give a hair cut to Modi and Shah. That is why they sabotaged the elections. They thought they will teach some lesson by doing a minor hair cut*. But what happened, they got their own minor chopped.

Look at Ayodhya. Lord Ram will never forgive them. Not in this life and not in next. Since they obstructed the momentum of upliftment of several crores of people. That is a karma they will pay and they will blame others for it.
So people trying to bring an objective analysis of this manifesto or that, really need to look at ground reality. Point is, Hindu voters are tactically smart, but strategically stupid.
And as pointed out, Modi does not have to pick up any Hindu cause from now onwards. Likes of J. Sai Deepak and Anand R can go and suck their thumbs. Look what Ayodhya did. Here is a person (Modi) who toiled so hard to bring Lord Ram home from a tent and what did Ayodhya do? Voted for the party that rained bullets on them.
* I felt that there will be sabotaging of elections, particularly in UP and in Ayodhya and Varanasi. That is, to teach a lesson to Modi-Shah and not become overconfident! I dismissed it as a one-off rant. Got distracted by the useless Rajput noise in N. Gujarat (they needed a reason to rant).
PS: The stupidity of voters need to be called out. So let's not hide behind the mithya of voters are smart and intelligent and wise. Sometimes they get the tactical and strategic challenge and sometimes they do not. Today, I am seeing people from UP realizing, "Oh what have we done!".