Letters: BJP - The numbers game

In his article "Why Narendra Modi needs both 'Mohanlal' and Mohan Bhagwat" (October 9), Bharat Bhushan has stated that only 31 per cent of the votes cast in the recent Lok Sabha elections were in favour of Narendra Modi. Thirty one is also the favourite number of several other analysts and TV commentators. All of them are ignoring the fact that about 100 Lok Sabha seats, out of a total 543, were contested not by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) but by pre-poll alliances. Surely, the votes garnered by pre-poll alliances are also to be reckoned as votes in favour of Modi. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA)'s share of the vote cast is 38.6 per cent.

Considering that India Gandhi's famous election victories in the 1970s were won with around 40 per cent votes, the NDA's current vote share of 38.6 per cent cannot be, in any way, treated as too low. Again, when it comes to the number of seats, the figure mentioned almost all the time is that of the BJP alone i.e. 282.

The NDA's figure of 336 seats hardly ever finds mention. Is there a conscious effort to "downsize" the NDA's electoral triumph?

P R Nair Kochi

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