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Journalism of Courage
The Congress performed poorly in direct fights with the BJP in Maharashtra, winning only 10 of at least 75 seats where the two national parties faced each other. The BJP won in 65 of these seats.
What is more worrisome for the grand old party is that there were six seats among these 75 – about 10% of the total seats with direct contests – where the Congress was not even in second place.
While the BJP contested 149 seats across Maharashtra, the Congress contested 101, and was locked in a direct contest with the BJP in almost 75% of the seats where it fielded candidates. The results, however, were overwhelmingly in favour of the BJP.
The BJP’s vote share was almost 27%, while the Congress secured about 12%. But isolating the parties’ vote share to just the seats they contested shows that the BJP secured an average of 51.5% of the votes polled in each seat it contested, while the Congress managed an average vote share 34.7% per seat.
In the recent Lok Sabha polls, the BJP had secured a 44.88% average vote share per seat contested, recording a 6-percentage point increase in these elections.
The Congress had won 44 seats in the 2019 Assembly polls, and won 13 of the 17 Lok Sabha seats it contested this year. The Assembly outcome is a clear dip from its last Assembly and Lok Sabha performances. Given that the Congress had secured 47.77% of the vote share per seat it contested in the Lok Sabha polls – and 16.92% of the total votes cast – its vote share per seat has seen a 14-percentage point decline in a matter of months.
In Achalpur, which saw a direct BJP-Congress fight, the BJP won by more than 12,000 votes, with the Prahar Janshakti Party coming in second, and the Congress in third.
In Aurangabad East, the BJP won by just over 2,000 votes ahead of runner-up AIMIM. Here too the Congress finished third, likely having lost out on the Muslim vote to the AIMIM.
In Chandvad, the Congress dropped back to fourth, behind the winning BJP, runner-up Prahar Janshakti Party, and an Independent in third place. The Congress finished more than 81,000 votes behind the BJP.
In Nalasopara, too, the Congress was fourth and trailed the winning BJP by almost 1.5 lakh votes. The Bahujan Vikas Aghadi (BVA) and the Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena placed second and third respectively.
In Solapur City Central, the BJP won by more than 48,000 votes over the AIMIM, with the Congress further back in third at around 93,000 votes behind the BJP.
In Vasai, the BJP trumped the BVA in second by just over 3,000 votes, and the Congress in third by more than 15,000 votes.
In Bhiwandi West, the BJP finished first by more than 31,000 votes ahead of the Samajwadi Party (SP) runner-up, an Independent in third, and the Congress in fourth, over 48,000 votes behind the BJP.
