Congress' vote share increases

Election results never cease to surprise. Otherwise, how does one explain that in a decade between two Lok Sabha elections — in 1999 and 2009 — the Congress’s vote share increased by just 0.5 per cent to 28.6 per cent but its tally went up by 91 seats to 205 this time?

Updated on: May 18, 2009, 24:55:58 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Share via

Copy link

Election results never cease to surprise.

Otherwise, how does one explain that in a decade between two Lok Sabha elections — in 1999 and 2009 — the Congress’s vote share increased by just 0.5 per cent to 28.6 per cent but its tally went up by 91 seats to 205 this time?

A decade ago, the BJP had sprung a similar surprise when it got a smaller percentage of votes (23.75 per cent) than the Congress (28.30) but emerged as the largest party with 182 seats.

In this election, the BJP got 18.82 per cent of over 42 crore votes but fetched only 116 seats.

“The right combination with right issues work. The Congress did better homework than the BJP,” said Satish Desphande, a sociologist with Delhi School of Economics.

An analysis of Election Commission data revealed that three states made a huge difference for the Congress this time -- Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan.

UP gave the Congress 21 seats with a 6 per cent increase in vote share -- the highest for the party among major states. In 2004, the party had 12 MPs from UP with a vote share of 12 per cent.

Digvijay Singh, 61, party in-charge for UP, described the gain as a revival of the party in its “oldest bastion”, giving all credit to “young leader” Rahul Gandhi.

Although in Bihar, the Congress got only two of the 40 Lok Sabha seats, its vote share increased from 4 per cent in 2004 to 10 per cent this time.

Huge gains for the Congress in these two states hurt its allies, the Samajwadi Party (SP) in UP and RJD in Bihar the most because of the division of votes.

Although the SP lost only 3 per cent votes this time, its number fell by 12 seats. If the SP had contested in an alliance with the Congress, it would have won a large number of seats, SP general secretary Amar Singh said.

In Bihar, if the Congress, RJD and Lok Janshakti Party had contested as an alliance, the combine would have got 37 per cent votes, 1 per cent less than the JD(U)-BJP alliance, which won 32 seats.

Although the Congress was expected to do well in Rajasthan, a gain of 16 seats is not reflected in a meagre increase in vote share of close to 6 per cent.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

Catch every big hit, every wicket with Crickit, a one stop destination for Live Scores, Match Stats, Infographics & much more. Explore now!

Stay updated with all top Cities including, Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and more across India. Stay informed on the latest happenings in World News along with Delhi Election 2025 and Delhi Election Result 2025 Live, New Delhi Election Result Live, Kalkaji Election Result Live at Hindustan Times.