The BJP’s landslide in the 17th Lok Sabha general elections has resulted in setting some new records in terms of vote share in various parts of the country. The BJP secured the highest ever vote share by a single party in both Gujarat & Madhya Pradesh.
The BJP’s landslide in the 17th Lok Sabha general elections has resulted in setting some new records in terms of vote share. In terms of vote share, data from the ECI suggests that in Madhya Pradesh & Gujarat, this is the highest ever vote share secured by a single party in a Lok Sabha election since independence.
Note: The following analysis only considers States & does not include Union Territories. It also does not include alliances that secured more than 50% vote share.
BJP alone secured more than 50% vote share in 11 States
The fact that the BJP has now become the dominant party across large parts of India can be gauged by its vote share in various states. In the recently concluded 2019 Lok Sabha elections, BJP alone secured more than 50% vote share in 11 states and with its allies, the vote share crossed 50% in a total of 14 states. In other words, the NDA secured more than 50% vote share in 14 of the 29 states. The BJP singly achieved this feat in only 6 states in the 2014 elections. The record for a single party securing more than 50% vote share in most states is still held by the Congress. It secured more than 50% vote share singly in 12 states in 1984 general elections, held in the immediate aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination.
Congress achieved this feat in 55% states in 1984
The Congress singly won more than 50% vote share in 12 of the 22 states or 55% of the states in the 1984 elections, held in the immediate aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination. The BLD achieved this feat in 7 of the 22 states in the 1977 elections, held in the aftermath of the emergency. The Congress crossed the 50% vote share only in 2 out of 18 states in the 1967 elections, the lowest for any Lok Sabha general election till date.
BJP secures highest ever vote share by any party in Gujarat & Madhya Pradesh
In Gujarat, BJP secured a vote share of 62.2% in 2019, surpassing the 60.1% it secured in 2014. BJP’s 2019 vote share in Gujarat is the highest ever by a party since independence. Even in Madhya Pradesh, BJP secured 58% in 2019, the highest ever by any party since independence. In Karnataka, the BJP secured 51.4% vote share in 2019, the first time after 1984 that any party secured more than 50% vote. In each of these states, the Congress last secured more than 50% in 1984, more than 30 years ago.
In the case of Haryana, a single party secured more than 50% vote share after a long gap of 35 years where the BJP secured 58% vote share in 2019. In the case of Goa, the BJP secured a more than 50% vote share in the 1999, 2014 & 2019 elections. In Arunachal Pradesh, the Congress secured 51.1% vote share in the 2009 elections and the BJP has now secured 58.3% in 2019. Himachal Pradesh along with Tripura holds the record for a single party securing more than 50% vote share in most general elections. In each of these states, a single party secured more than 50% vote share in 11 out of the 17 general elections held so far.
