Much has been said about the ‘not so good’ results for BJP in Gujarat elections. Not only the Congress but most Media houses have portrayed it as a major moral victory for Congress, and a chink in the armor of Narendra Modi. Most of the newspapers in Gujarati, Hindi and English language portrayed the Gujarat Result as a Moral Victory or Navsarjan of the Congress (Navsarjan Gujarat was the tagline of the Congress Gujarat Campaign).
While addressing the media a day after the Gujarat Results, Rahul Gandhi mentioned that PM Modi has a credibility problem and claimed moral victory in Gujarat Elections. Rahul Gandhi did not stop there and went on to tweet, “People of Gujarat have refused Modi’s model of Development, it is hollow from inside. A big question has arisen on Modiji’s credibility. Whatever he says is being parroted by his organization, but the country is not buying it.”
मोदीजी का जो मॉडल है, उसे गुजरात के लोग नहीं मानते, वो अंदर से खोखला है। मोदीजी की credibility पर बहुत बड़ा सवाल उठ गया है। वो जो कह रहे हैं, उनका संगठन उसे repeat कर रहा है, लेकिन देश उसको सुन नहीं रहा। https://t.co/VcuBlIYZeM
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) December 19, 2017
But the Data seems to disagree with Rahul Gandhi’s claim of a ‘Moral Victory‘. Take a look at what the data has to offer:
• BJP retained 81 seats out of the 115 seats that it had won in 2012. While the Congress could only retain 42 out of 61 seats for the same period. Thus, the percentage of retention of seats by BJP is very high at 70.43% for and that for Congress is 68.85%. Thus, the data suggests that people once again shown confidence in BJP as they did in the previous elections.
• Not only this, out of these 81 seats that BJP retained, margins of winning increased for BJP on 48 seats. That is roughly 60% of the retained constituencies. Roughly, this increase in winning margin on these 48 seats is more than 11.5 Lakh votes (appx 3.8% of total votes polled in Gujarat). So, not only people have shown confidence in the BJP, they made sure that the BJP wins the elections with resounding margins.
• On 17 out of the 33 seats that the BJP lost to Congress, the margin of win was less than 5000 votes.
• On 10 out of the 16 seats that the BJP managed to snatch from Congress, BJP won with a better margin than that of the Congress Candidate back in 2012.
• On 11 out of the 77 seats that the Congress won, margin of victory of the Congress candidate was lesser than the number of NOTA votes polled.
• Roughly, 1 out of every 2 Gujarati has put trust in BJP, that reflects in the vote share of the BJP, which has increased from 47.85% in 2012 to 49.1% in 2017.
• 20 candidates of the BJP have won the elections with margin greater than 50,000. While only 1 candidate of the Congress was able to achieve this feat with 50776 votes.
After analyzing the data and voting pattern, only a fool would say that this is a moral victory of the Congress.
The reality is that the Congress managed to put up a good show in the Gujarat Election 2017 only because of the vicious caste games it played. Data proves that the people of Gujarat have voted BJP to power with even more love and votes. The Congress should thank their lucky stars that their caste games worked, else there was every chance of them getting limited at 30 seats down from 61.
Source: The data has been compiled from the Election Commission official Result website http://eciresults.nic.in/ between 10:00 PM-10:30 PM on 19-12-2017.