Lok Sabha Elections 2024: Unveiling The Narrow Wins Of Phase 2 Seats From 2019 Elections

The second phase of the Lok Sabha elections 2024 ended on 26 April, with a turnout of 60.7 per cent. The second phase saw voting on 88 seats, with 1,202 candidates, including 102 women, contesting the elections.

The high-profile candidates in phase two included Rahul Gandhi from Wayanad; Om Birla, Lok Sabha Speaker from Kota; Hema Malini from Mathura, Shashi Tharoor from Thiruvananthapuram, KC Venugopal from Alappuzha, Arun Govil from Meerut, Pappu Yadav from Purnia, Tejaswi Surya from Bangalore South, and many more.

Seats With Low Victory Margin

Analysis of the polling results of 2019 shows that of the 88 seats that went to polls in the second phase of the Lok Sabha elections 2024, 36 seats saw a low margin of victory, ranging from 0.1 per cent to 9.9 per cent.

In the previous elections, Chamarajanagar in Karnataka saw the lowest margin of victory as BJP's V Srinivas Prasad won the election with just a 0.1 per cent margin, defeating Congress's R Dhruvanarayana. It is also worth mentioning that NOTA in Chamarajanagar stood at 12,176 votes, while the difference between the winner and runner-up was just 1,817 votes. Meerut comes second on the list as in 2019 this constituency of the phase two Lok Sabha 2024 election saw a vote margin of just 0.4 per cent. Rajendra Agarwal of BJP, who has been the incumbent since 2009, won the 2019 elections, defeating BSP candidate Haji Yaqoob Qureshi by 4,729 votes, while the NOTA votes stood at 6,316.

Constituencies like Thiruvananthapuram, Bangalore North, and Mandya saw a margin of victory above 9 per cent but below 10 per cent.

State-Wise Analysis Of Low MOV Constituencies

Comparing the result of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections with the seats that went to polls in phase 2 of the ongoing election, Kerala topped the list with 11 seats with a wafer-thin margin of victory, followed by Karnataka with 6 seats, Assam with 4 seats; Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, and Uttar Pradesh with 3 seats each; West Bengal and Bihar with 2 seats, and Manipur and Rajasthan with one seat each.

Party-Wise Analysis Of Low MOV Seats

Among the 36 low victory margin seats that went to polls in the second phase of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, BJP stood on top by winning 17 low-margin seats, followed by Congress with 12, and independent candidates won two seats. Meanwhile, Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party, Communist Party of India (Marxist), Naga People's Front, Shiv Sena (UBT), and Janata Dal (United) won one seat each.

It is also worth highlighting that most of the sitting MPs have lost after winning with low victory margins. The BJP replaced Rajendra Agarwal from Meerut, who was a three-term MP from the constituency, him with the Ramayan's fame Arun Govil. A similar change occurred in Tumkur, Karnataka, where the BJP replaced its sitting MP GS Basvaraj, who defeated HD Deve Gowda in 2019 by 13,339 votes, with V Somanna. In Kanker, Chhattisgarh, MP Mohan Mandavi, who won the 2019 election by 6,914 votes, has also been replaced by Bhojraj Nag.