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Journalism of Courage
In the just-concluded elections to the 18th Lok Sabha, the incumbent BJP bagged 240 seats, which marked a sharp drop from its tally of 303 seats in the 2019 polls. In contrast, the principal Opposition Congress won 99 seats, nearly doubling its 2019 tally of 52 seats.
Both the BJP and the Congress improved their average victory margin in the 2024 polls as compared to it in 2019.
Overall, the BJP’s average winning margin is higher than that of the Congress in the current polls too. However, in the seats reserved for the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and the Scheduled Tribes (STs), the Congress has won with a bigger average margin than the BJP.
An analysis of the 2024 Lok Sabha poll results shows that the BJP’s average victory margin in 240 seats is nearly 3.36 lakh votes as compared to the Congress’s average margin of about 2.96 lakh votes in its 99 seats.
In 2019, the BJP had won 303 seats with an average margin of about 2.32 lakh votes whereas the Congress had won 52 seats with an average margin of nearly 1.21 lakh votes. Thus, the BJP’s average margin grew by 44% and the Congress’s by 144%.
In the heartland states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana, the BJP’s average victory margin stands at about 2.76 lakh votes, which exceeds the Congress’s 2.05-lakh average margin. The BJP suffered big losses in UP, Rajasthan and Haryana, while the Congress failed to win any seats in MP.
The Samajwadi Party (SP) put up its best show in the Lok Sabha polls by winning 37 seats in UP this time. Its average victory margin across these seats remained 77,556 votes. In 2019, when the party had won only five seats, its average margin had stood at nearly 1.47 lakh votes.
The Trinamool Congress (TMC) has won 29 seats out of 42 in West Bengal with an average margin of about 1.69 lakh votes – as compared to its margin of about 1.63 lakh votes in 2019 – but the party’s victory margin is more than double than that of the BJP’s 75,474 vote-margin in the state where the latter won 12 seats. The BJP has been making attempts to expand its footprint in Bengal for the past several years.
In Tami Nadu, the DMK, which had won 24 seats in 2019 with an average margin of nearly 2.68 lakh votes, saw its margin decline to about 2.31 lakh votes in the current polls, even as its tally dipped to 22 seats.
The BJP has won a majority of the seats reserved for the SCs and the STs in the country, but the Congress’s average victory margin in such seats is higher than the BJP’s.
In the backdrop of the Opposition INDIA bloc’s campaign on the issue of the Constitution and reservation, the comparison of average winning margins of the BJP and the Congress on reserved seats assumes additional significance.
The BJP won 30 of the country’s total 84 SC-reserved seats with an average margin of 2.91 lakh votes. The Congress won only 20 SC seats, but its average victory margin at 3.17 lakh votes is higher than that of the BJP. In 2019, the BJP had bagged 46 SC seats with an average margin of 2.03 lakh votes, while the Congress had won just 6 SC seats with a margin of 1.29 lakh votes.
Of the country’s 47 ST-reserved seats, the BJP won 25 with an average margin of 3.31 lakh votes. On the other hand, the Congress won 12 seats with an average margin of 4.29 lakh votes. In the 2019 polls, the BJP had bagged 31 seats with a margin of 1.63 lakh votes while the Congress had won only 4 ST seats with a margin of 66,796 votes. Thus in comparison to 2019, the BJP’s winning margin in ST seats almost doubled, but the Congress’s margin grew seven times.
Significantly, many of the BJP’s candidates, who lost the polls in UP told The Indian Express that the Congress-led INDIA’s campaign pitch for “protection of the Constitution and reservation” influenced voters from the SC, ST and OBC communities.
