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Journalism of Courage
As it faces Assembly elections in Maharashtra – a crucial state where the ruling Mahayuti alliance suffered a setback in the recent Lok Sabha polls – the BJP is drawing comfort from statistics. Since 2014, the year of the “Modi wave” general elections, the BJP has consistently led the state with the highest vote share across Lok Sabha and Assembly polls, ahead of its rivals and allies alike.
Data from recent elections show that the BJP has generally fared better than other parties in Maharashtra, at least in terms of vote share. In this year’s Lok Sabha elections, though the BJP won just nine of the 28 seats it contested – it left the remainder of the state’s total 48 parliamentary seats to its allies – it still managed to secure 26.2% of the vote share, higher than all the other parties. The Congress contested 17 seats and polled 16.9% of the total votes to win 13 seats, exceeding the BJP’s tally.
Among the Opposition parties, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) won nine of the 21 seats it contested and secured 16.7% votes, while the Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP) won eight of the 10 seats it fought with a 10.3% vote share. Among the BJP’s allies, the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena won seven of its 15 seats with a 13% vote share, and the Ajit Pawar-led NCP won just one of the four seats it contested with 3.6% of the total vote.
However, the BJP saw a drastic decline from its tally in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, when it had won 23 seats, while the Congress recorded a considerable improvement from its 2019 tally of one seat.
In 2019, the BJP had secured a 27.8% vote share, marginally higher than its vote share this year. The Congress got a 16.4% vote share, and the undivided Shiv Sena and NCP 23.5% and 15.7%, respectively.
The BJP has blamed its Maharashtra performance on losses in specific Assembly segments that constitute each Lok Sabha seat.
“Despite a decent vote percentage, our numbers declined because we lost badly in one or two Assembly segments in some Lok Sabha seats, while leading in the other Assembly segments. This brought down our numbers but still kept up our vote percentage. For example, in the Dhule Lok Sabha constituency, we were ahead in five of the six Assembly segments, but lost very badly in the Malegaon Central Assembly segment, thus ending up losing by 3,000 votes,” a BJP leader said.
Indeed, while the BJP’s Subhas Bhamre secured between 93,000 and 1.41 lakh votes in five Assembly segments in the Dhule Lok Sabha constituency, he got just 4,542 votes in the Malegaon Central segment, where the Congress’s Shobha Bachhav secured 1.98 lakh votes, giving the Congress enough of a lead to win the Lok Sabha seat by 3,831 votes.
In the 2019 and 2014 Assembly polls too, amid shifting alliances, the BJP managed to secure the highest vote share for the state’s 288-member House. In 2019, when it had a pre-poll alliance with the undivided Shiv Sena, it contested 164 seats and got a 25.8% vote share across the state. While its rivals in the Congress and undivided NCP got 15.9% and 16.7%, respectively, the Shiv Sena stood at 16.4%.
Even in 2014, when the BJP had contested independently, it fought in 260 seats and got 27.8% of the total vote, well ahead of the Shiv Sena at 19.4%, the Congress at 18%, and the NCP at 17.2%. That year, the Congress and NCP too were unable to agree on an alliance.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP won 23 of the 24 seats it contested with a 27.6% vote share. The Shiv Sena got a 20.8% vote share, followed by the Congress at 18.3% and the NCP at 16.1%.
“Over the last 10 years, the BJP has individually performed better than all other parties in the NDA and the Opposition in the state, showing that our core base has stayed intact. That core base is more in the urban areas of the state than in rural areas, but it stays with us,” a BJP leader said.
This steady support base, however, only emerged after the 2009 elections and was cemented after Narendra Modi came to power in 2014. In 2009, the BJP won 18.2% of the total votes in the Lok Sabha elections before securing 14% in that year’s Assembly polls. Prior to that, the BJP got a 22.6% vote share in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections and 21.2% in 1999. In the 2004 and 1999 Assembly polls, it got 13.7% and 14.5%, respectively.
