How the numbers add up in UP: This is what BJP's win percentage was

Lucknow, March 13: The magnitude of the Bharatiya Janata Party's win in the recent Uttar Pradesh assembly election can be understood by the fact that it is the best performance by a political party in UP since 1977. The Janata Party had won 352 seats out of 425 seats in undivided UP in 1977 after the Emergency was lifted.

In 2017 the BJP won 312 seats out of 403 which means it won 77.4% seats it had contested. In the process the BJP increased it vote share by 25 percentage points when compared to 2012 results. This time the BJP got 39.7 percent votes. This win is almost of the same magnitude as 2014 Lok Sabha election when the BJP got 42.7 percent votes and won 73 of 80 seats.

How big is the BJP win in UP can be measured by the fact that it is the BJP's best performance ever in the state, while it is the worst ever performance by the Congress since 1977 and by the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party from the time of their formation.

The SP and the BSP maintain vote share:

A heartening fact for the SP and the BSP is that both the parties have maintained their vote share of at least 20 percent. Though both the parties could keep their vote share above 20 percent they could not translate it into seats won.

Worth noting is the fact that in 2012 the BSP had got 26 percent of the votes and had won 80 seats, in 2017 the BSP got 22.2 percent votes but could only win 19 seats. The BSP lost 61 seats by getting around 4 votes less than it got in 2012.

The SP this year won only 47 seats despite having vote share of 21.8% in 2012 it had won 224 seats by having vote share of over 29%. It thus indicates that a dip of around 7 to 8 percent in vote share cost the SP 177 seats.

The Congress compared to 2012 lost 21 seats. In 2012 it had won 28 seats, this time around they managed to win only seven seats.

Dalit votes:

In UP Dalit votes matter a lot as they constitute 21 percent of the state's population. Dalits were thought to be hostile to the BJP and in favour of BSP. The results however astonished the BSP as it could only win 2 reserved seats for Dalits as compared to 69 reserved seats for Dalits won by the BJP.

Muslim votes:

Muslims make 19 percent of UP's population. Despite not fielding any Muslim candidate this time for UP the BJP still managed to win 31 seats out of 42 Muslim dominated seats. In the Muslim dominated seats the BJP got 39.36 percent votes compared to the SP-Congress alliance which got 33.75 percent votes and the BSP could only get 18.61 percent votes.

OneIndia News