BJP nearly doubles number of states, UTs where its vote share is over 50%

The BJP has not only registered an emphatic victory in Lok Sabha elections 2019, but also nearly doubled the number of states and Union Territories (UTs) where it has polled more than 50 per cent votes. From seven in 2014, the number of such states and UTs has in 2019 gone up to 13, according to the Election Commission (EC) data.

At 9 pm, EC trends showed that the BJP had won 109 seats and was leading on 194. The BJP has improved its 2014 Lok Sabha performance, which in itself had been quite comprehensive with an absolute majority – 282 out of 543 seats.

The saffron party's vote share has crossed 50 per cent in Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, NCT of Delhi, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand.  

Most significantly, in the country's bellwether state, Uttar Pradesh, the BJP's 2019 vote share stood at 49.56 per cent – leaving the party a hair's breadth away from polling half of all the votes in the state. The party's vote share in 2014 in the state stood at 42.63 per cent.  

This time around, the BJP also saw a substantial increase in its vote share in Tripura. The party polled 49.03 per cent of the votes in the state in 2019. The BJP's vote share in 2014 in Tripura was 5.77 per cent.   

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the party had polled more than half the votes in seven states and UTs – Goa, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Daman & Diu. Of these, Daman & Diu is the only place where the BJP’s vote share has slipped under 50 per cent in 2019.