Rekha Gupta took oath as the chief minister of Delhi today. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s 2025 victory in the Capital is only its second in eight assembly elections held in Delhi since 1993. This victory also breaks an impasse that existed since 2015, when the party swept all seven parliamentary constituencies in Delhi the previous year but performed miserably in assembly elections. The Delhi oath aside, this is a good day to statistically examine the BJP’s current dominance in Indian
Delhi CM-designate Rekha Gupta at the BJP HQ in Delhi on Wednesday. (Sanchit Khanna/ HT Photo)
How CMs underscore BJP's dominance in electoral landscape
BJP and its allies run two-thirds of the state governments in India
There are 28 states and three Union territories (UTs) with a legislative assembly in India at the moment. With a chief minister in Delhi, 14 of these 31 states and UTs now have a BJP CM. This number would be 15 if N Biren Singh – he resigned on 9 February 2025 – was still the chief minister of Manipur, which is now under President’s Rule. Another five states and the UT of Puducherry have a chief minister from a party that is a member of either the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) or NEDA (North East Democratic Alliance).
Number of current BJP chief ministers is almost at par with its highest ever
The BJP was formed in 1980 and got its first chief minister in 1990 (Bhairon Singh Shekhawat in Rajasthan). Until 2014, the BJP’s share in total number of chief ministers at any point of time never crossed 27%. This number reached its highest level when the BJP had 16 out of 31 chief ministers (51.6%) in May 2018. While this number fell for a while in the subsequent period, it has almost bounced back to the same level now.
BJP’s share in MLAs is the highest ever at the moment and highest for any party since 1989
Out of the 4,111 MLAs elected according to the latest election cycle (this includes Manipur which is under President’s Rule but where the assembly has not been dissolved), 1,634 or 39.7% are from the BJP. This is the highest ever share of MLAs for the BJP since it contested its first elections. In fact, the last time a political party had a higher share of MLAs than the BJP was in 1989 when the Congress had 47.5% of all MLAs.
The BJP has increased its share of MLAs in 20 out of 31 legislative assemblies in the last two elections
If one were to compare the seat share of the BJP in every state and UT in the latest round of assembly elections and the one before that, the party’s representation has increased in 20 out of 31 regions. The BJP has also maintained its previous seat share in Assam and Nagaland. In 16 of these, its seat share is the highest ever -- underlining the BJP’s expansion and dominance across large swathes of India.
Abhishek Jha is Assistant Editor-Data at Hindustan Times. He uses statistical programming to generate newsworthy insights from large datasets. He is part of the team that produces Number Theory, a daily data story feature of the paper’s print edition. Since March 2024, he has been writing Weather Bee, a weekly column for the Hindustan Times website. He is a chemical engineer by training, who specialises in stories related to weather, climate, and the environment. Jha has been at HT since 2018, where he offers data-driven perspective and analysis on politics, environment, weather, climate, economy and society. His work includes data coverage of elections in India and abroad, including the 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha elections; the disasters and extreme weather resulting from changing climate, such as floods, droughts, heat waves, cold waves, and dwindling snow cap in the Himalayas; the factors that drive poor air quality in northern India; the changing patterns of land use; the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on labour market conditions; the changing pattern of consumer spending seen in the new consumer spending surveys; and social norms seen in the surveys such as the National Family Health Survey.
Roshan Kishore is the Data and Political Economy Editor at Hindustan Times. He heads the newsroom's data journalism team, which produces Number Theory, a daily data-driven feature for the print edition and the HT app. Number Theory uses data analysis and story-telling based on it to add value to the newsroom’s daily coverage by putting stories in a larger context on a range of issues, including politics, macroeconomy, markets, global affairs and climate. Under his leadership HT’s data journalism work has established itself as a niche product in Indian journalism and pushed the boundaries of marrying academic rigour with news sense and speed. Along with writing and editing data stories, he has also been writing a weekly political economy column called Terms of Trade for HT Premium. A trained economist with an MPhil degree from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Kishore has also been a visiting fellow at the Centre for Advanced Studies of India (CASI) at the University of Pennsylvania. Along with his journalistic work, his writings have also appeared in journals such as the Economic and Political Weekly and working papers for CASI and UNESCAP.
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