Page 27 - 31MAR2019E

While Congress has
not much to lose and
only to gain because politics
44 was its lowest ever
tally. The BJP dream
of ‘Congress mukt
parties that contested in 2004. Bharat’ remains a win a seat, while the Congress needed
The BJP should know that in terms over 24 lakh votes to deliver it one seat.
of vote share, this is the lowest vote distant reality and it’s The winning party’s gain since 2009
share ever necessary to win a majority was almost exactly what the Congress’
of seats — 31 per cent. That is to say 31 for the BJP to be wary loss was. With 282 seats, the BJP won
per cent of 66.4 per cent of votes cast or of Congress in the the highest number of seats by a sin-
139.5 million voters. This comes to 17 per gle party compared with 244 for the
cent of the total voting population. The 2019 elections Congress in 1991 and 206 for Congress
2014 majority is the shortest majority it in 2009.
obtained by a single majority party. The BJP got more seats than it had
And mind it, the 2019 general elec- Another interesting fact that in the last two elections combined. It
tion is not 2014 election which was held emerged from the analysis is that the could have formed government on its
on the promise of “achhe din” and anti- swing in the vote share away from the own, a feat that no party had come close
incumbency of 10 years of Manmohan Congress was smaller than the swing in to since the 1984 election which saw a
Singh government at the Centre. The the vote share towards the BJP. wave of sympathy following the assas-
2019 polls come after three victories of In fact, the large vote shares are sination of Congress prime minister In-
Congress in Hindi heartland of Madhya never a guarantee of electoral success, dira Gandhi. The BJP came close to but
Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. as both the Bahujan Samaj Party in Ut- did not beat the best ever performance
Beyond doubt, the BJP in Uttar Pradesh tar Pradesh and the DMK in Tamil Nadu of Janta Party that won 295 seats in
was undoubtedly the biggest surprise discovered– with 19.6 per cent of the the 1977 post-Emergency election that
of these elections. The BJP won 71 out vote and 23.6 per cent respectively in drove Indira Gandhi out of office.
of 80 seats, leaving the crumbs to other their states, neither party could pick up How BJP could garner such a brute
parties’ leaders. a single seat. majority would be known from the fact
For the first time since it contested The BJP converted its votes into that it’s biggest win came from Uttar
elections, the BSP draw a blank. In seats at a far better rate than the Con- Pradesh, where it won 71 seats despite
terms of vote share, the rise of the BJP gress could. The winning party needed a big coalition partner, the best per-
was amazing, from 17.5 per cent to 42.34 on average just over 6 lakh votes to formance by a single party in the state
per cent. Congress collapsed to 7.48
per cent. But then the Bahujan Samaj
Party and the Samajwadi Party were
on a collision course. The BSP and SP
have joined hands and it’s a formidable
combination. Then there is the resur-
gent Congress buoyed by the victories
in three Hindi states and induction of
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
Political arithmetic at times can be
very interesting. In the Hindi heartland,
for instance, 45 per cent of the votes
brought the BJP 86 per cent of the seats
while the Congress with 19.5 per cent of
the votes got only 3 per cent of the seats.
So numbers can be confusing and the
BJP should be wary of this logic.
With 172 million votes, the BJP got
a vote share of 31 per cent — or nearly
every third vote cast in the country —
as against the Congress’ 19.3 per cent.
But see just 31 per cent of votes meant
almost clean sweep by the BJP. In 1999,
headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee the BJP
won just 86.6 million votes — 17 million
votes less than the Congress — with a
vote share of 24 per cent but was able to
form the government.

Tehelka / 31 march 2019 27 www.Tehelka.com