Lok Sabha elections 2019: Results repeat the 2014 story in Maharashtra

May 24, 2019 08:59 AM IST

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The BJP-SHS won 41 out of the 48 seats in the state with a vote share of 48% in the 2014 elections.

The 2019 results in Maharashtra are almost a repeat of 2014. The combined vote share and seat share of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiv Sena (SHS) are almost the same.

The BJP-SHS won 41 out of the 48 seats in the state with a vote share of 48% in the 2014 elections. These numbers are 41 and 50% for 2019. The Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) could win six seats with a combined vote share of 34% in 2014. These figures are five and 32% in the 2019 elections.

While the magnitude of the BJP-SHS victory has been extraordinary in both 2014 and 2019, the combined seat share of the BJP and the SHS has been more than 50% in the state in the 1996, 1999 and 2004 elections as well.

The significant jump in the BJP-SHS performance in 2014 and 2019 has happened because of a large increase in the vote share of the alliance.

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While the BJP-SHS has improved its performance in the state by increasing its vote share, the reverse holds for the Congress-NCP alliance. Its vote share of 32% and 34% in 2019 and 2014 is not very different from what it had in 2009, when it won 25 out of the 48 seats in the state. However, the alliance’s ability to convert votes into seats has come under severe squeeze after the NDA has increased its vote share.

When the four major parties in the state contested separately in the 2014 assembly elections, the BJP and the NCP managed to increase their vote share compared to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, while the SHS and the Congress suffered a marginal decline. The SHS eventually came back into the NDA fold for the 2019 elections. The NCP has actually performed better than the Congress in terms of number of seats in these elections. It has won in four seats compared to just one for the Congress. This is also similar to what had happened in 2014. The NCP had never surpassed the Congress in terms of seats in the state before 2014. As the BJP led NDA strengthens its grip over Maharashtra, the Congress risks being marginalised by even its own alliance partner.