© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Since 2014, the BJP has achieved a meteoric rise in the Hindi heartland but various subsequent elections appeared to have put brakes on its pace, with the party seeing diminished seat tallies in most of the states where it retained power. But the recent Haryana polls saw the party reverse this trend.
Although the BJP appeared to be losing ground in Haryana – it went from winning an outright majority in the 2014 Assembly polls and sweeping all 10 Lok Sabha seats in 2019 to falling short of a majority in the 2019 Assembly polls and seeing its Lok Sabha tally getting halved in 2024 – it has made a remarkable recovery in the just-concluded state Assembly elections to return to power with its highest-ever seat tally for a third consecutive term.
In the Hindi heartland, the BJP has formed the government in seven states – Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Bihar [with the JD(U)], Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Haryana. But in most of these states, the party has seen its Lok Sabha or Assembly seat tallies decline over the last decade.
In UP, the BJP recorded its best ever performance in 2017, when it won 312 seats on its own in the 403-member Assembly. But in the 2022 polls, the party’s tally fell to 255 seats with the Samajwadi Party notching 111. Though it got an absolute majority, the BJP saw its seat number fall considerably.
In UP’s 80 Lok Sabha seats too, the BJP has seen a decline since 2014. It won 71 seats in 2014, in the “Modi wave” election that saw Narendra Modi contest from Varanasi for the first time. In 2019, the party’s tally in the state fell to 62, even though it increased its overall Lok Sabha tally from 282 seats to 303. But in 2024, the BJP’s tally in UP dipped further to 33, contributing to the ruling party’s national tally falling below the majority mark to 240.
In Bihar, the BJP won 53 seats in the 2015 Assembly polls while the JD(U) allied with the RJD and the Congress to form the government in the 243-member House. However, the BJP returned to power in 2017 after the JD(U) ditched its allies to join hands with the party. In the 2020 Assembly polls, the JD(U) and the BJP contested together and retained power. The BJP won 74 seats, exceeding the JD(U)’s tally of 43.
However, in 2022, the JD(U) again left the NDA and formed a government with rival RJD. But again in 2024, ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the JD(U) returned to the NDA camp and formed a new government in the state with the BJP.
But in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls in Bihar, the BJP saw its tally fall. It won 22 seats contesting independently in 2014, but 17 and 12 seats in 2019 and 2024, respectively, when it had a seat-sharing pact with the JD(U).
In Uttarakhand, the BJP has swept the state’s five Lok Sabha seats in each of the last three elections. But in the Assembly polls, the party saw its tally fall from 56 out of a total of 70 seats in 2017 to 47 seats in 2022 despite changing the CMs twice in a bid to offset anti-incumbency.
Where BJP is not in power
In Himachal Pradesh, the BJP’s strong Lok Sabha performances – it won three out of four seats in 2014 and all four in 2019 and 2024 – were not matched by its Assembly poll tally. In 2017, the party had formed the government with 44 seats in the 68-member Assembly. But in 2022, the BJP won just 25 seats, losing power to the Congress.
In Jharkhand, which is heading for the Assembly polls in the coming weeks, the BJP had won 12 out of 14 Lok Sabha seats in 2014 and 2019, before sliding to eight in 2024. But in the Assembly polls, the party went from forming the government in 2014 with 37 seats in the 81-member House to losing power to the JMM-Congress alliance in 2019 by getting just 25 seats.
The BJP has failed to win the Delhi Assembly polls multiple times. The party has not been in power in the UT since 1998. Though the BJP won all seven Lok Sabha seats in three consecutive elections since 2014, the emergence of the Aam Aadmi Party saw it win just three Assembly seats in 2015 and eight in 2020 in the 70-member House.
Where BJP recently came to power
In Rajasthan, which has a history of rejecting the incumbent, the BJP came to power with 115 seats in the 2023 Assembly elections in the 200-member House after securing just 73 seats in its 2018 defeat to the Congress. But in the Lok Sabha polls, the party went from sweeping the state’s 25 seats in 2014 and winning 24 in 2019 to seeing its tally fall to just 14 in 2024.
In Madhya Pradesh, though the BJP lost the 2018 Assembly elections to the Congress, it managed to topple the government following defections and form its own government in early 2020. In the 2023 polls, the party however registered a resounding win, increasing its tally to 163 from 109 in the 230-member House.
In Chhattisgarh, though the BJP all but swept the state’s 11 Lok Sabha seats in 2014, in the following Assembly polls of 2018, it fell out of power with just 15 seats in the 90-member Assembly against the Congress’s winning tally of 68 seats. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP’s tally dropped by one seat to nine, but it returned to power in the 2023 Assembly polls with 54 seats. In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the party bagged 10 seats.
