New Delhi: The BJP-led NDA has dropped 28 seats in Uttar Pradesh from 2019 and 37 seats if we compare the 2024 numbers with those from 2014, when the party peaked in the state.
But the saffron party should have a deeper cause for worry. The party lost popular support across the length and breadth of the state, with alarming drops in vote shares in the central, southern and eastern regions. In fact, out of the total 80 seats, there was only one constituency, Gautam Buddha Nagar, where the vote share of the BJP and its allies did not drop in comparison to 2019. This means that the BJP’s collapse was a pan-state phenomenon and not restricted to select pockets, seats or opposition strongholds.
UP has 75 districts, spread across 18 administrative divisions. For analysis, we divided the state into five zones: West UP (comprising of the sugarcane belt along with the National Capital Territory and Braj); Rohilkhand, in the upper Ganga plains; Awadh-Central, in and around Lucknow; Bundelkhand-Kanpur (comprising of Bundelkhand region and the contiguous Kanpur division), and Purvanchal (south and north).
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
The INDIA Bloc won 43 seats in this election—Samajwadi Party 37 and the Congress six. The NDA, which had won 64 seats in 2019, slumped to only 36 seats–33 for the BJP, two for the Rashtriya Lok Dal and one for the Apna Dal (Soneylal). The Bahujan Samaj Party, which contested alone, could not open its score and had to settle for a vote share of 9.39%.
The Opposition bloc matched the NDA in terms of the overall vote share, 43.5% against the saffron coalition’s 43.7%.
Sharp fall in NDA’s vote share as compared to 2019
In 2019, the NDA’s collective vote share was around 51.4%, with the BJP alone almost touching the half-way mark. An analysis by The Wire showed that in 2024, in the 16 constituencies in West UP, the NDA’s average vote share was 47.66%. This is a fall of 6.2% from 2019. What’s notable is that the BJP’s prospects received a boost on these seats by the entry of the RLD into the NDA fold. One can imagine that the BJP’s vote share would have slumped further had the RLD stuck with the INDIA bloc.
In the 10 seats in Rohilkhand, the NDA’s vote share was 43.12. This was a drop of 4.6% from 2019. In the 11 seats in Bundelkhand-Kanpur, the NDA’s vote share was 43.55%. The fall here was huge–9.65%. In the 11 seats in Awadh-Central, the NDA mustered a vote share of 42.02, which is lower than its state average. The fall in this region was also significant–8.28%. And lastly, in the 32 seats of southern and northern Purvanchal (East UP), the NDA’s vote share was 42.12%. The loss of public support here was the highest–9.96%.
The BJP contested the election on the face of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who along with Yogi Adityanath and other national and state leaders of the party, ran a high-pitched communal campaign with the sole intent of polarizing Hindu votes through fear-mongering tactics and projecting the Opposition parties as anti-Ram and anti-Hindu. The party also boasted a formidable caste coalition, with four OBC-based parties as formal allies while two others, Janvadi Party Socialist and Mahan Dal, ditched the Opposition and extended support to the NDA ahead of the voting.
Despite such a strong line-up, the BJP could not save itself from an embarrassing political and electoral defeat in the state. The phase-wise break-up of seats won by both the coalitions shows that as the election progressed eastwards, the BJP suffered more losses.
In the first two phases, the NDA won 10 seats, while INDIA, which won zero seats in the second phase, was restricted to a total of five. Aazad Samaj Party won one seat in the first phase.
In phases three and four, the NDA won 12 and INDIA 11. While INDIA snatched many seats in these phases, in the following three phases, the BJP was completely outmanoeuvred. In phases five and six, the NDA could win only seven out of the 28 seats. The remaining 21 went to INDIA. In the seventh phase, which covered regions in and around BJP strongholds of Gorakhpur and Varanasi, the NDA could only win seven seats out of the 13. The INDIA bloc won six seats here.
Despite facing the strongest possible Opposition alliance, the BJP+ in 2019 crossed the 50% vote mark in a whooping 41 constituencies out of 80. Of these 41, on six seats, the NDA crossed the 60% votes. This time, however, the Modi-led ruling alliance could go beyond the 50% vote share–which is unassailable–on only 15 seats. Remarkably, on two seats–Rae Bareli and Ghosi–the NDA’s vote share slipped even below 30%. On another five seats, the NDA’s vote share was in the 30-35% range, while on 16 seats, the saffron alliance could only get a vote share between 35 to 40%.
Drop in Modi’s vote share
Modi dropped his own vote share from 63.6 in 2019 to 54.24. In Banda, in Bundelkhand, the NDA’s vote share dropped by 14.06% to 32.12%. In the keenly-watched seat of Amethi, where the Congress’ KL Sharma defeated union minister Smriti Irani, she lost 11.75% votes and dropped to 37.94%.
The BJP’s star campaigner and candidate in Varanasi, Modi, could not change the party’s downslide in the five constituencies in the Varanasi division. The average vote there was a dismal 41.4%. What would come as a consolation for CM Adityanath was that in the six seats in the Gorakhpur division, his political backyard, the BJP candidates got an average vote share of 47.49%.
Despite aggressively playing the Ram Mandir card, the BJP’s vote share in Faizabad and four other constituencies in the Ayodhya division was an average 38.85%. The BJP lost all five seats here. Even worse than this was NDA’s performance in the Azamgarh division, where it lost all four seats but with a much-reduced average vote share of 34.23%.
Read all of The Wire’s reporting on and analysis of the 2024 election results here.
