New Delhi: In Lakshadweep, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s vote share in 2019 was 0.27%. This is lowest of the vote-share it secured from the 436 seats it contested in the general election last time.
Lakshadweep is one of the 41 seats where the BJP had a single-digit percentage of vote share in 2019. In 25 seats, it could not touch 2%.
The full list of seats in single-digit vote share for the BJP:
The majority of these seats, 24 seats of the total of 41, are from Andhra Pradesh, where the BJP got less than 2%. Kadapa, where it got the second lowest vote share, is known to be a citadel of the Y.S. Rajashekhar Reddy clan, now with chief minister Jagan Reddy’s YSRCP. Incidentally, Y.S. Rajashekhar Reddy’s daughter, Y.S. Sharmila Reddy, heads the state Congress unit and is contesting the polls from the family home this time.
Khammam (1.8%), Bhongir (5.4%) and Peddapalle (9.55%) are seats from Telangana in this list.
There are three seats here from the erstwhile state of J&K, Baramulla (1.73%), Srinagar (2.48%) and Anantnag (8.15%), which add up to half the state, which had six seats in the Lok Sabha.
Three seats in this list are from Kerala: Kannur (6.5%), Vadakara (7.52%) and Malappuram (7.96%).
In the north-east, in neither of the two seats in Meghalaya, Tura (5.43%) and Shillong (9.78%), could the BJP touch the 10% mark. In Sikkim too, 4.69% is all it could manage. In Mizoram too, it got only 5.74% of the vote.
Incidentally, in Lakshadweep, where the BJP got the least vote share, the victorious MP, Mohammed Faizal, of the Nationalist Congress Party, saw himself get disqualified twice in 2023 and also expelled from the House as a result of the conviction, before the disqualification was reversed. Finally in October last year, Supreme Court allowed him to continue as MP, staying Kerala high court’s order, which had refused to suspend his conviction.
