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Journalism of Courage
Early trends of counting of votes for the Lok Sabha elections up to noon come as a setback for the ruling BJP, which seems to be falling about 30 seats short of a majority on its own, while the Congress inches towards 100 seats.
Notably, the BJP seems to be losing some ground to the Congress in direct contests in the Lok Sabha polls, for the first time in 10 years. It has also ceded ground to SP in UP, and TMC in West Bengal.
While the BJP has improved its position in Telangana, where it had four seats the last time and is leading on eight now, and Odisha, where it is gaining 10 seats compared to its 2019 tally of eight seats — the gains in the BJP’s peripheries seem to be far lower than the losses in its core — unless the trends somehow reverse.
Counting has been very slow — and only a fraction of votes have been counted thus far — but the trends seem to be firming up in most constituencies in the swing states, with a relatively lower number of constituencies showing narrow margins.
Uttar Pradesh — which singlehandedly powered the BJP to a majority in 2014 and 2019 — seems to be delivering the party a major setback, with the BJP losing more than half the 80 seats in the state in early trends.
On the ECI website, the party’s UP leads are at 36 (at 12.45 pm), with the SP surging ahead with 33 and the Congress leading in eight seats. The Congress’ Kishori Lal Sharma registered a lead of above 47,000 votes over Union Minister Smriti Irani in Amethi by noon.
The losses in UP alone threaten to throw the BJP below the majority mark, unless a late saffron surge happens. However, most seats are tending to show steady trends of leads and losses.
In 2019, the BJP had won 62 seats in UP despite a grand SP, BSP and RLD opposition alliance.
Other disappointments
Maharashtra seems to be emerging as another area of concern for the BJP, with the BJP alone losing 10 seats over its tally of 23 the last time, despite contesting more seats. The NDA as a whole is suffering losses in the state, with the Congress and Shiv Sena (UBT) running neck and neck with the BJP in their individual tallies, while Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar’s NCP are falling behind. In Baramati, Sharad Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule was ahead of Ajit Pawar’s wife Sunetra Pawar by close to 10,000 votes.
In West Bengal, the BJP’s tally seems to be falling from the 18 it got last time, with the leads past noon showing the TMC surging to 32 seats in terms of leads, and the BJP going down to just nine seats.
In Rajasthan, the BJP seemed to be losing eight seats to the Congress in early trends, and 11 seats in all. In Haryana too, which the BJP swept the last time, the BJP was showing leads in just four of 10 seats, and the Congress was leading on five seats.
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