In numbers: How BJP made big gains in assembly elections in last decade
India Today
How did the BJP's vote share jump from 14% in 2012 to 31% in the recent elections?
A decade ago, states like Bihar, Odisha, and West Bengal used to be a weak link for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Its vote share in the assembly elections in the eastern states in 2012 was a meagre 14 per cent.
On the back of impressive performances in recent assembly elections in Bihar, Odisha, and West Bengal, the BJP has more than doubled its vote share in the region. In the last elections in the three states, while the BJP emerged as the single largest party in Bihar, it occupied the main opposition’s space in Odisha and West Bengal.
As a result, the party’s vote share galloped to 31 per cent in the region, relegating the Congress to a marginal player.
India Today’s Data Intelligence Unit (DIU) analysed vote share data of all assembly elections since 2012. For this analysis, we collected data from the Election Commission on the number of votes polled by the BJP, Congress, and others in all states and union territories with assemblies.
We calculated the votes for the parties in the assembly elections for the entire year and added the previous elections’ votes for the same year where assembly elections did not take place. We took March as the base month to calculate votes. For example, assembly elections in West Bengal took place in May 2021. So, we included the revised West Bengal numbers in our 2022 calculations.
The following are the broad trends:
1. While the number of votes polled in assembly elections went up 28 per cent since 2012, the number of votes received by the BJP increased by a whopping 119 per cent in the same period.
