Massive victory margin for BJP further dwarfs Congress

Pankaj Sharma/Zee Research Group

The good news for BJP just keeps pouring in while for Congress it indeed is time for some serious introspection! Post a historic 282 seats under its belt, comes the good news that on an average victory margin for all seats won by the party stood at 1.83 lakh votes. This is more than double the victory margin of votes for 44 seats won by Congress. Congress average victory margin stands at 79 thousand. The highest victory margin has been recorded by Narendra Modi in Vadodara at 5.70 lakh votes. The lowest victory margin of 36 has been registered at Ladakh in J&K. The massive success of BJP can also be ascertained by the fact that in previous polls the party had an average victory margin of 63 thousand votes. Moreover, in 2009 Congress winners had an average margin of 72 thousand votes. Although Congress has marginally improved on this front from the last time yet the conversion rate of BJP is much higher than the oldest party. A detailed study of victory margins between the winner and the runner up throws up some very interesting pointers. For instance Congress managed to grab the second position in as many as 224 constituencies. Is this a consolation for Congress? Not really! The average gap between Congress candidate and winner in these 224 seats stands at 1.82 lakh votes. Thereby hangs a tale! BJP has emerged the single largest party in the Lok Sabha but ended second on 54 seats. BSP and SP came up as runners-up on 36 and 31 constituencies respectively. CPI (M), DMK, RJD and NCP grabbed second position on 30, 27, 22 and 17 constituencies respectively. In 2009 Lok Sabha elections Congress finished second on 141 seats while BJP came second on 110 seats followed by BSP (50) and CPI (M) (36) respectively. Lalu’s RJD and Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP finished second on 20 seats each followed by Mulayam Singh’s SP on 18 seats. This time for runner-up parties the gap from the winner is a worrying sign. For instance, this time Congress registered a difference of 1.82 lakh votes from the winner on seats where party ended second. Surprisingly, this gap for Congress was only 75 thousand in 2009. On the other hand BJP has reported an average margin gap of about 1 lakh votes in 2014 election on seats where party finished second. In 2009, the number was only 72 thousand. Among major parties, Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) reported a margin of 1.96 lakh from the winning candidates. The average gap between the winner and Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate is 1.60 lakh votes. Rise in voting percentage could be the driving factor behind growing defeat margins as 2014 general elections registered a record high voter turnout of 66.38 percent. Interestingly, Rajasthan and Gujarat are top two states which reported maximum margin between the winner and runner-up. In both states, BJP has won all the seats. The four other states under this category are Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.