How Modi magic helped BJP to achieve highest ever national vote share

Sealing its phenomenal electoral victory, the Narendra Modi-led BJP crossed the 300 mark and was leading in one seat as counting for votes for 542 Lok Sabha seats neared its end. The massive exercise began on Thursday morning with early trends establishing the BJP's conclusive lead, making it evident that Modi's message, packaging muscular nationalism, security and Hindu pride, had worked wonders.

With the BJP riding a Modi wave that took it past its 2014 tally of 282, the opposition was left way behind with the Congress winning only 52 seats, two less than it needs for a Leader of Opposition post in the lower house and marginally more than the 44 it got in the last general elections.

Regional parties followed the Congress in the electoral table.The DMK with 23 wins, the Trinamool Congress and the YSRCP with 22 each, the Shiv Sena with 18 and the Janata Dal-United with 16 made their presence felt in an election that took on overtones of a presidential contest with the domination of Modi.

The other regional parties, particularly in Uttar Pradesh, did not fare well. The BJP and its ally Apna Dal(S) won 64 of the 80 seats in the state, demolishing the challenge posed by the SP-BSP alliance. The Samajwadi Party (SP) won five seats and its alliance partner Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) 10.

Left parties CPI and CPI-M were left with five seats -- three for the CPI-M and two for the CPI. This is about half of their tally of 10 in 2014.  Election Commission figures also showed the BJP had won 302 and was leading in one.

The Bharatiya Janata Party had more than garnered 38 per cent of the votes counted in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The NDA as a whole, managed to garner close to 45% of the vote. This is the highest vote share received by the party nation-wide in any Lok Sabha election since the party was (re)formed in 1980.

Here's a quick look comparision at the immense surge of the vote shares of the party in different states between 2014 and 2019:

In Uttar Pradesh, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) challenged popular political logic by winning 62 seats excluding 2 seats of its alliance Apna Dal despite the SP-BSP-RLD alliance that seemed to have an upper hand, going by caste politics.

BJP leaders described this win as “even more significant” than the one in 2014 when its alliance had won 73 seats in Uttar Pradesh. That’s because the party has secured nearly 49.5% of vote share, and the icing on the cake is Union leader Smriti Irani defeating Congress president Rahul Gandhi in Amethi. In 2014, the party had managed to garner a total amount of 42.3 per cent vote share. 

In  Karnataka, it came as a stunning blow to the Congress-JD(S) coalition and an unprecedented wave in favour of the BJP, the ruling parties were reduced to one seats each while the saffron party swept 25 out of the 28 Lok Sabha constituencies. As far as the vote share is concerned, the BJP  saw a lead of almost 5 per cent compared to 2014. The Saffron party acquired 51.4 vote share in 2019 which was 43 per cent in 2014. 

The BJP swept all the seven seats in Delhi, set new records in five constituencies where its candidates defeated their opponents with the highest margins ever. Parvesh Verma, the sitting MP from the West Delhi constituency, won a second term with a record-breaking margin of 5.78 lakh votes. The runner-up, Congress's Mahabal Mishra, got 2,87,162 votes. erma broke his own record for the highest victory margin in Delhi.

In 2014, he had trounced his closest rival, Jarnail Singh of the AAP, by a margin of 2,68,586 votes. This time, he got 8,65,648 of the total 14,41,601 votes polled in the seat. As far as vote share is concerned, the BJP grabbed 56.5 percent of vote share in 2019. 

In Chhattisgarh, the  results came as a shocker for Congress where the BJP won nine of the State’s total 11 seats, just five months after it suffered a comprehensive defeat in the Assembly elections. The Congress managed to win only Bastar and Korba constituencies, while BJP registered victory by massive margins in Raipur, Bilaspur, Durg, Rajnandgaon, Kanker, Mahasamund, Surguja, Raigarh and Janjgir seats. The party has also seen a major surge in vote share as well.  The Narendra Modi led BJP secured 50.7 percent of vote share in 2019 which was 48.7 percent in 2014.

Similarly, the states of Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Gujarat also seen a hefty growth in vote shares in 2019 as compared with 2014.

Himachal Pradesh:

2019: 69.0 per cent

2014: 53.3 per cent

Madhya Pradesh:

2019: 58 per cent

2014: 54 per cent

Rajasthan:

2019:  58.5 per cent

2014: 54.9 

Uttarakhand:

2019: 60.8 per cent

2014: 55.3 per cent

Gujarat:

2019: 62.2 per cent

2014: 59.1 per cent