Can BJP raise its Lok Sabha tally despite skewed regional showings?
Because the BJP has a big regional skew in its performance, this is an important consideration for the BJP’s electoral math in the 2024 elections.
This question is best answered by looking at just one chart which plots the BJP’s seat share in the 2019 elections and the change in its vote share between the 2014 and 2019 elections.
In any election, the best metric to measure whether or not a party has increased popular support, is the vote share number. However, in a federal first-past-the-post election system, which is what India has, an increase in national vote share need not lead to an increase in seat share due to two reasons. Because the BJP has a big regional skew in its performance, this is an important consideration for the BJP’s electoral math in the 2024 elections. This is why it is useful to classify states into different categories.
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Category I: In nine states and union territories with 58 PCs there is nothing left to conquer for the BJP
These are Gujarat, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh and union territories of Delhi, Chandigarh, and Daman & Diu. To be sure, Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli are now one UT. Together, they account for 58 parliamentary constituencies (PCs). In all of these PCs, the BJP actually increased its vote share between the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections except in Daman & Diu. Put together, these states had a share of 10.15% in the number of votes polled in the country in the 2019 elections, but their share in BJP’s votes in the 2019 elections was much larger at 16.4%. Now, even if the BJP were to increase its vote share in these states, it will add nothing to its Lok Sabha tally of 2019 because there is nothing left to win in these states.
Category II: In another three states with 82 PCs the BJP can add a maximum of two-three PCs
These are the states where the BJP won at least 90% of the seats. In the states of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, the BJP won 52 PCs out of the total 54. In the state of Karnataka, the BJP won 25 out of 28 PCs and in one PC, the party supported an independent candidate who went on to win. In Karnataka, the BJP will actually contest fewer PCs than it did in 2019 because of an alliance with the Janata Dal (Secular). This means that even in a clean-sweep scenario, the BJP will not add more than 2-3 PCs to its Lok Sabha tally in these states.
Category III: BJP’s potential gains are also very limited in Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand and Assam
In the first three states, the BJP won at least 75% of the seats. In Uttar Pradesh, the party won 62 out of 80 PCs and suffered a loss in seat share (it won 71 in 2014) despite increasing its vote share. However, the BJP is likely to contest fewer PCs in Uttar Pradesh than in 2019 because of the inclusion of Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). If RLD and Apna Dal contest two PCs each, the BJP will be contesting 76 PCs in the state. This means it can add a maximum of 14 PCs from Uttar Pradesh. Similarly, even if the BJP were to win all PCs in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand (it did not contest all of the 14 PCs in 2019) it will add a maximum of five PCs. In Assam, the BJP contested 10 out of the 14 PCs in the state and won nine . If the alliance formula remains unchanged, it can gain just one more seat from the state.
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Category IV: States which the NDA swept, but BJP was not a dominant partner in 2019
They are Maharashtra and Bihar with 48 and 40 PCs respectively. In 2019, the BJP won 23 out of the 25 PCs it contested in Maharashtra and all 17 PCs contested in Bihar. But almost half of the PCs in these states went to NDA allies in the state. In these states, the BJP’s seat count, even in the event of an NDA clean sweep, will depend on the number of seats it contests this time. There are reports that the BJP could contest 30 seats in Maharashtra, but the final formula is yet to be announced.
Category I to IV states account for 266 out of the BJP’s 303 Lok Sabha seats in the 2019 elections. Unless the alliance formula in some of these states changes significantly in the BJP’s favour, the BJP is unlikely to add more than 25 seats to its Lok Sabha tally even in a clean sweep scenario.
Category V: States where the BJP was a credible second force in 2019
They are West Bengal and Odisha with 42 and 21 PCs respectively. The BJP won 18 and 8 seats from West Bengal and Odisha in 2019 and increased its vote share in both these states compared to 2014. Theoretically, the BJP can make the biggest gains from these two states (37 PCs) even with a small increase in vote share. To be sure, if the BJP were to ally with the Biju Janata Dal in Odisha, its potential gains could be limited.
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Category VI: Southern challenge for BJP
The BJP won no seats in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala and won four in Telangana in 2019. Put together these four states account for 101 PCs in the Lok Sabha. Apart from Andhra Pradesh, where the BJP has allied with the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) it is contesting the elections on its own in the other three states in this category and is not considered to be among the top two political forces at the moment, although it is expected to gain at erstwhile-ally AIADMK’s expense in Tamil Nadu. Unless the BJP manages to surprise everyone, this is the most difficult part of the BJP’s 2024 challenge.
Category I to VI state and union territories account for 511 out of the 543 constituencies in the Lok Sabha.
Category VII: Mixed bag
This includes the states of Punjab (13), Manipur, Meghalaya and Goa (two each), Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim (one each) and union territories of Jammu and Kashmir (5) and Puducherry, Ladakh, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Dadra and Nagar Haveli (which became part of the combined Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu UT after 2019 Lok Sabha elections), Lakshadweep (one each). The BJP has 7 out of these 32 PCs and is unlikely to make major gains here although it could gain a few seats.