)
The November assembly results had predicted a major loss for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Lok Sabha elections 2014. But the party managers managed to plug all the holes within five months of coming to power in the state.
Though the party retained power in Chhattisgarh with absolute majority in November elections, its performance was poor in few Lok Sabha constituencies. It included Sarguja, Bastar and Rajnandgaon. Based on the calculation, the psephologists earlier predicted a loss of at least three seats in Chhattisgarh.
The BJP not only retained its old tally of 10 out of 11 seats, but also managed to plugs the holes created during the state polls that resulted in party’s poor show in three Lok Sabha constituencies. Not only BJP bagged all the three seats under scanner but registered a record margin.
In Sarguja, BJP had lost seven out of eight assembly constituencies in November 2014. The difference of votes was around 10,8000. Similarly, in Bastar, BJP lost five out of eight assembly constituencies making a difference of around 60,000 votes.
Though the margin of votes was nominal in Rajnandgaon, BJP and Congress shared four seats each in the state polls.
“The way BJP organization and cadre works during election brings a major change,” Congress candidate from Bastar Deepak Karma, who lost the election, said. True to his calculation, the BJP managers identified the holes soon after the state polls in December and drew the strategy to plug it that yielded the results when state went to the polls in April.
Having trailed by over 100,000 votes in Sarguja, BJP won the seat by a huge margin of 147,000 votes in the Lok Sabha poll. Same was the result in Bastar where BJP candidate won by a margin of about 125,000 votes while the party trailed by about 60,000 votes in the assembly polls. In Rajnandgaon, a margin record of about 240,000 votes was created.
“Besides the BJP and its affiliated organizations putting all its resources at work, Modi effect was evident in the state,” said political expert Dr Sushil Kumar Trivedi. The BJP in fact failed to gain more but retaining 10 seats and reducing the huge margin of votes were itself a challenge that it successfully handled, he added.
