On April 6th, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will celebrate its 44th founding anniversary, and the theme of the National Day is “Phil Ek Baar Modi SarkarTherefore, now is a good time to assess the party’s prospects for the 2024 general elections and see how strong its stronghold is in the Sabah polls.
In 2014, the BJP won 282 seats and 31% of the votes, defeating the Congress comprehensively. In the next Lok Sabha elections, it surpassed this record with 303 seats and an even bigger vote share of 37%.
1. Biggest party in all regions
It is generally believed that the Bharatiya Janata Party is strong in the north and west, but weak in the east and south. While that is true, the BJP remains the single largest party in all four regions. That’s because the latter two are a number of regional parties that, while influential, are not united under a common banner.
The northern and western regions were strongholds for the Bharatiya Janata Party, which won 155 out of 191 seats (81% strike rate) and 51 out of 78 seats (65% strike rate), respectively. However, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s performance was poor in the east and south. In the former, it won less than 50% of the seats (67 out of 142), while in the latter it won only 25% (30 out of 132). These two regions, especially West Bengal, Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, will be the Bharatiya Janata Party’s focus areas in 2024.
2. Wide range of winning percentages in 2019
In the 2019 elections, the BJP won 224 seats with over 50% of the vote. In practice, this means that the party has won a massive 75% of all seats. In four states, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Gujarat, the party won all seats with over 50% of the votes, and in six other states, Bihar, Karnataka, Assam, Rajasthan, Haryana, and Madhya Pradesh. He won three seats in the state. -A quarter of the seats were won with more than half of the total votes cast. While nearly two-thirds of the constituencies were similar in states such as Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, only one-quarter of them were in West Bengal. In contrast, in Odisha, which had a triangular election, the BJP won no seat with more than 50% of the vote.
The BJP secured a victory margin of more than 100,000 votes in 226 of the 303 seats it won. In fact, in 105 of his cases, the margin of victory exceeded his 300,000 votes. There are only 40 seats where the party received fewer than 50,000 votes, and these seats could be considered weak or close.
Also, out of the 224 seats that the BJP won with over 50% of the votes, its main rival was the Congress in 153 seats. Of the 190 direct elections held between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress in 2019, the Bharatiya Janata Party won 175 seats and the Congress won only 15 seats. Of these 175 seats, 153 were seats where the Bharatiya Janata Party won more than half of the votes. In another 185 seats where the BJP contested against regional parties, it won 128 seats.
That’s not all. Out of his 101 seats where the BJP recorded a vote share of 40%-50% for him, 79 seats gave victory to his BJP and even a 40% vote share was not expected in a multi-party election contest based on precedent. We have shown that we can guarantee victory. -Post system. In contrast, the main challenger, the Congress, won just 19 seats with more than half the votes, and an additional 76 with 40-50% of the votes.
3. Abundant “powerful” seating
The BJP won 247 seats in 2014 and 2019 and these can be classified as strong seats.
Based on past trends, the BJP has won 95 seats in quick succession in the last three elections and 167 seats in two of the last three polls. Therefore, the BJP has good prospects with a total of 262 seats. This is only 10 less than the magic mark of 272.
Additionally, the party came in second in 2019 with 72 seats, but lost 17 of them by less than 5%. In 2019, the BJP lost 35 seats that it had won in the previous elections. Of these, 20 were in the home states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
4. Alliances are stronger compared to 2019
This year, the BJP has been trying to cobble together several alliances, including the Janata Dal (Secular) (JD-S) in Karnataka, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in Andhra Pradesh, and the Rashtriya Lok in India. – Added partners such as Dal (RLD). Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra; Overall, the party’s coalition in the four states this year appears to be stronger than in 2019, covering 181 seats, a third of the party’s strength in Sabah. ”
5. Modi Card
Finally, as the election looks increasingly presidential, Narendra Modi has a large lead over Rahul Gandhi, who is not the official face of the Indian bloc’s prime minister. Mr. Modi has gained tremendous trust and confidence from the people as he heads into his third term, and many believe that he will be the difference between victory and defeat for the party.
These numbers highlight the near invincibility of the Bharatiya Janata Party in this election. Will the opposition be able to reverse its position?
(Amitabh Tiwari is a political strategist and commentator. In his previous avatar, he was a corporate and investment banker)
Disclaimer: These are the author’s personal opinions.
