Congress-free India? Vote share figures tell a different story
In the past six months, leaders and workers in the Congress have been waiting for a reshuffle which will reflect a new attitude of the grand old party.
Despite the 35-year-old BJP thinking that it was able to consolidate chief Amit Shah's ambitious mission of a Congress-free India with a dream run in 2014, a study of the share of votes polled by the Congress in the recent elections tell a different story. The figures show that the 130-year-old Congress, currently at its lowest since its formation in 1885, still retains strong loyalty among the voters. The study also shows that the BJP's popularity, which soared under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is mainly at the cost of other parties.
According to a report published in IndiaSpend.com , the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system, which India follows, means that a candidate getting the maximum votes wins the election. This means that a handful of voters can change the outcome in Indian elections.
The report says that in the recent Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, Congress's vote share actually increased from 17.8 per cent in 2008 to 18 per cent in 2014. The BJP, which displayed its best ever performance in the Muslim-majority state, secured 23 per cent votes.
In Maharashtra, the incumbent Congress secured its lowest tally in the 2014 elections, but there was only a marginal dent in its vote share: barely 2.9 per cent. Haryana was the only exception in 2014, where the Congress's vote share and seats fell drastically.
In the 2013 elections in Rajasthan, the ruling Congress, despite getting just 21 seats, still had a vote share of 33.7 per cent. When you compare the tally to the 2008 results when the party got 96 seats in with a vote share of 36.8 per cent, you see why the BJP's mission is not being accomplished soon.
In Madhya Pradesh, although the Congress won just 58 seats - 13 less than in 2008 - the party's vote share increased by 4.7 per cent. In Delhi, the Congress vote share has always been over the 40 per cent mark except the 2013 elections when it went down to 24.7 per cent. That drop was not because of the BJP, but because of the rise of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections again, the Congress vote share was 19.3 per cent, getting the party its lowest ever tally at 44 MPs. For the BJP, which got a simple majority with 282 seats, the vote share was 31 per cent. In the 2009 elections, the Congress vote share was 29 per cent.