BJP holds on to lok sabha vote pie
The BJP and its allies have got 41.4 per cent votes in the Assembly elections, capturing nearly 80 per cent of MLA seats.
Hyderabad: Despite several analysis in the run-up to the UP Assembly polls predicting a tough time for the BJP, the party has repeated its 2014 Lok Sabha performance by winning 325 Assembly constituencies.
The BJP and its allies have got 41.4 per cent votes in the Assembly elections, capturing nearly 80 per cent of MLA seats. This is a peculiar feature of the first past the post voting system that India follows, where the number of seats won is disproportionate to its vote share.
Compared to last Assembly polls in 2012, the BJP has doubled its vote share.
The SP-Congress alliance polled 28 per cent votes, but this brought them just 13 per cent of the total seats in the Assembly or in 54 seats in absolute numbers — just three less than what they had got in the LS polls.
If we were to combine their vote share in the Lok Sabha elections, where they contested independently, both parties got 29.7 per cent, which translated into 14 per cent of the total seats or 57 MLA segments.
In the 2012 Assembly elections, the SP won 224 seats — the majority — with just 29.1 per cent votes, which is merely 1.1 per cent less than what they got in the current elections.
The Mayawati-led BSP, which contested the current Assembly polls alone, showed its firm grip on its vote bank as it improved its share to 22.2 per cent compared to 19.77 per cent in the Lok Sabha elections. While the BSP won zero seats in the Lok Sabha elections, it won 19 seats — 4.7 per cent of the total Assembly strength — in this elections.
With major opposition parties holding on to their vote share, they could possibly attempt bigger alliance to stop the Modi wave in the next election.
Another interesting aspect in this elections is the drubbing the Grand Old Party Congress received in the state which was home to its tallest leader Jawah-arlal Nehru.
The Congr-ess, which had been the fourth largest party in the UP Assembly since last 30 years, has lost its place to the BJP’s ally Apna Dal (Soneylal). The Apna Dal won nine MLA seats in Uttar Pradesh compared to the Congress’ seven.
The Hyderabad-based MIM, whose contest in UP, analysts believed, would help in the BJP, fare miserably by getting just 2 lakh votes in a state with a population of 20 crore.
The BJP did even better in the neighbouring Uttarakhand with over 46 per cent vote share, though down from the nearly 56 per cent in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The Congress got 33.5 per cent votes.
In Punjab, Congress mirrored the BJP’s performance in UP and won nearly 80 per cent of total seats or 77 MLAs in an Assembly of 117. The Akali-BJP alliance got 30 per cent votes but it had to settle for 15 per cent of the total seats or 18 MLAs. The Aam Aadmi Party has beaten the Akali-BJP by winning 20 MLAs with just 23 per cent vote share.
In Goa, the Congress won 17 seats, though its vote share was less than that of the BJP’s at 28.4 per cent. The BJP got 13 seats with a vote share of 32.5 per cent.
In Manipur also, BJP got the highest number of votes at 36.3 per cent, but got seven seats less than the Congress. With 35.1 per cent votes, Congress won 28 seats and the BJP got 21.