BJP Result Makes Large Changes to Electoral Map

(Ishwari Bajpai is Senior Advisor at NDTV; he has been a journalist for 30 years, and has covered the elections since 1984.)

The enormity of the BJP alliance's victory is still sinking in. And while most exit polls had assumed a BJP government, there was very little sense that they would get a majority on their own and win 339 seats. Even within the BJP, there has been considerable shock over how well they have done.

Along with their victory, there is obviously the decimation of the Congress and its allies, and others have also taken a huge beating; the DMK, BSP will have no seats in parliament and others like the SP, JDU and CPM have been reduced to single digits.

The other striking aspect of this election is that the BJP+ has completely changed the electoral map in two places, Western India and Uttar Pradesh.

In the West (see graphic below) the BJP plus has won (provisional figures) 130 of the 139 seats, giving them a phenomenal strike rate of 94%!

(Provisional Figures)

And while Rajasthan, MP and Chhattisgarh have in the past given 90% or more seats to one party, the Congress has remained reasonably well-entrenched in both Maharashtra and Gujarat. Even in 1977, when the Hindi belt gave the Congress just a handful of seats, they managed 20 seats (out of 48) in Maharashtra and 10 of 26 in Gujarat. In fact, despite Narendra Modi being in power in Gujarat, the Congress hasn't been humiliated like this.

So, to get wiped out there this time can, perhaps, only be understood by the fact that Gujaratis turned out in large numbers and voted for their favourite son overwhelmingly.

And may be the success of the BJP lies in the fact that they managed to get vast numbers of people to come out and vote, and vote for them. While the national turnout went up from 58% to 62%, an increase of 14%, in six big states where the BJP won big, the turnout has gone up by between 18% and 32%. And in these states, the BJP has a win rate of almost 90% and they account for two thirds of the seats that the alliance is winning.

In most of these states (there are some exceptions) the voter turnout is amongst highest ever. Given that the electorate has increased substantially and that the electoral rolls have been more meticulously revised, the actual increase in voters is much higher than these figures are showing. The success of the BJP campaign can be measured in bringing out many more people to vote.

And finally, BJP vote share in these states is really extraordinary. In four of the states, the BJP is getting more than 50% of the vote. Going on these provisional figures, in most cases (except Bihar in 1991) you have to go back more than 30 years to find the winning party getting such a large vote share. And it is this huge share of the vote, especially in UP and Bihar where there are multiple parties, that has propelled the BJP to over 335 odd seats.