Is Congress A No Match For BJP In Direct Contest? Here's What Data Says

Assembly Election Results: The Congress is staring at one of its worst performances in Maharashtra's political history, finding solace from its win in Jharkhand that too it got by riding on the back of Jharkhand.

Assembly Election Results 2024: Almost one and a half months back when the Haryana election result was announced, Shiv Sena-UBT MP Priyanka Chaturvedi made a big statement saying that Congress gets weakened when in a direct fight with the BJP. Her statement holds even two months later. The Congress is staring at one of its worst performances in Maharashtra's political history, finding solace from its win in Jharkhand that too it got by riding on the back of Jharkhand. 

The Strike Rate

In Maharashtra, the BJP contested 148 seats while the Congress contested 101 seats. The BJP has won 132 of them while the Congress bagged 16 seats. The BJP's strike rate is around 90 per cent, that of Congress is around 16 per cent. 

The Maharashtra Math

In the recently announced Maharashtra elections, the Congress was locked in a direct contest with the BJP on 75 seats. Of these 75 seats, the Congress could win only 10 seats.  What is even more concerning for the grand old party is that out of these 75 seats—around 10% of the total seats with direct contests—the Congress failed to secure even the second position in six of them.

The BJP garnered nearly 27% of the overall vote share, whereas the Congress achieved approximately 12%. However, when focusing solely on the constituencies where each party fielded candidates, the BJP averaged 51.5% of the votes in its contested seats, while the Congress obtained an average of 34.7% per seat.

The Haryana Setback

In the Haryana assembly elections, the BJP secured a simple majority while locked in a direct contest against Congress. The BJP and the Congress were locked in a direct contest on 89 seats. As per the Election Commission's results, the BJP secured 48 seats, while the Congress won 37. Here again, the BJP retained an upper hand. 

The Jharkhand Exception

In Jharkhand, the Congress was contesting 30 seats while the BJP was contesting 68 seats. Of this, the two parties were locked in a direct contest on 24 seats. Interestingly, since the JMM led the fight, the Congress won 13 of these 24 while BJP got 11. However, the Congress party's strike rate was lowest among its allies - JMM and RJD.

Call For Reforms

There has been a constant call for reforms within the Congress party. With these election defeats, the Congress leaders have said that they will analyse the poll results. Many Congress allies have also called upon the Congress leadership to take measures to rectify shortcomings.