As the BJP aims to maintain its dominance in the upcoming Lok Sabha results on Tuesday, a key aspect to watch will be whether it can replicate its 2019 performance, when it secured 224 out of its 303 seats (nearly two-thirds) with over 50% of the vote share.
In 2019, the BJP received over 70% of the vote share in seven seats, between 60% and 70% in 77 seats, and between 50% and 60% in another 140 seats.
The highest vote share was in Gujarat’s Surat, where Darshana Jardosh secured 74.47% of the vote. Interestingly, the Surat seat was won uncontested this time after the Congress candidate’s nomination papers were rejected and the other candidates withdrew.
A significant portion of the BJP’s victories with over 50% of the vote share occurred in states where the party is dominant and primarily opposed by the Congress. Out of the 224 wins with a vote share above 50%, 40 were in Uttar Pradesh, which has a total of 80 seats. In its complete sweep of Gujarat, the BJP won all 26 seats with over 50% of the vote share. Similarly, in Delhi, the party secured all seven seats with at least 50% of the vote share. The BJP also swept Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Arunachal Pradesh, winning all seats in these states with more than 50% of the vote share.
In Rajasthan, the BJP won 23 out of the state’s 25 seats (winning all seats) with over 50% of the vote share. In Haryana, where the party won all 10 seats, it secured nine with a similar margin. In Madhya Pradesh, the BJP won 28 out of 29 seats, with 25 of these victories having more than half the votes. In Karnataka, the party was equally dominant, winning 25 out of 28 seats, with 22 of those victories having over 50% of the vote share.
The BJP also secured seats with over 50% of the vote share in other states, including Jharkhand (eight of 14 seats), Chhattisgarh (six of 11), Assam (seven of 14), Goa (one of two), Tripura (one of two), Jammu and Kashmir (two of five), Bihar (14 of 40), Maharashtra (15 of 48), West Bengal (five of 42), and Punjab (one of 13).
Other parties, including BJP allies, collectively won 117 seats with more than 50% of the vote share. The parties with the most such seats were the DMK (19 seats), Congress (18), YSRCP (13), JD(U) (11), and the united Shiv Sena (10).
The Opposition INDIA bloc parties collectively secured 54 seats with more than 50% of the vote share, while other unaffiliated parties won 42 such seats. Altogether, non-BJP, non-NDA parties won a total of 84 seats with over 50% of the vote share, excluding the undivided NCP and Shiv Sena in 2019.
Across all parties, there were 186 seats where the winning margin was less than 10% of the total vote share. In 97 of these seats, the margin was less than 5%.
In the last election, the BJP won 83 seats with a margin of less than 10% of the vote share over the runner-up. Among these, 41 seats had a winning margin of less than 5%.
Other parties that frequently won seats by a margin of less than 10% included the Congress (31 seats), the TMC (11), YSRCP (9), BJD (7), and BSP (6).