Number Theory: Will Madhya Pradesh be a landslide for BJP once again?

In 2023 Madhya Pradesh assembly elections, BJP won a massive victory against Congress. Is BJP all set to replicate its victory in 2024 Lok Sabha elections?

All 29 Parliamentary Constituencies (PCs) in Madhya Pradesh will finish polling after the fourth phase of the current election cycle on May 13. In the assembly elections held in late 2023, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) won a massive victory against the Congress. Is the BJP all set to replicate its 2023 victory in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections? An HT analysis of past results in Madhya Pradesh suggests that the BJP has been a dominant political force in Madhya Pradesh for a long time.

The BJP has been a dominant political force in Madhya Pradesh for a long time. (ANI Photo) (BJP media)

Will Madhya Pradesh be a landslide for the BJP once again?

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  The BJP’s vote share has never fallen below 40% in Madhya Pradesh since 1989

  The BJP’s vote share in 1984 elections in the state, the first it fought as a new party, was 31.9%. With a vote share of 56.1%, the Congress won all 29 PCs in the state in that election. The historical analysis of Madhya Pradesh has excluded the 11 PCs which were carved out to create Chhattisgarh in 2000. In the 1989 elections, the BJP increased its vote share to 43.2% and it has only fallen below this threshold once -- in the 1996 Lok Sabha elections. This number was higher than 50% in both the 2014 and 2019 elections. This suggests that the BJP was a dominant force in the state even before 2014. This is not the case for the Congress, which saw its vote share drop below the 40% mark four times since 1984, even before 2014.
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  The Congress has never won a Lok Sabha election in Madhya Pradesh after 1991

  In the eight Lok Sabha elections which have been held from 1991, the Congress has finished ahead of the BJP’s national tally in three elections. However, as far as Madhya Pradesh is concerned, the Congress could only get more seats than the BJP in the 1991 elections. In the 2004 and 2009 Lok Sabha elections, when the Congress won 27% and 38% of seats against the BJP’s 25% and 21% at the national level, the Congress-BJP division of PCs in Madhya Pradesh was 4-25 and 12-16 respectively. To be sure, the BJP’s victories in 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections were of a different scale altogether.
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  BJP’s Lok Sabha victories in Madhya Pradesh have also come with higher margins

  An analysis of PC-wise victory margins in Madhya Pradesh since 2004 shows this clearly. Of the 116 PC-wise contests in the state since 2004, 77 PCs were won with a victory margin of 10% or more of the total votes polled. 71 of these PCs were won by the BJP while the Congress only won six. Even in the 5%-10% victory margin category, the BJP won 15 out of the 20 PCs in the category. The Congress and BJP won six each of the 12 PCs which were won with a 2%-5% victory margin while the BJP won four out the seven PCs which were won with a victory margin of less than 2% of the total votes polled in the last four general elections. If one were to exclude Guna and Chindwara PCs from this analysis, the number of PCs won by the Congress with a margin of 10% or more falls to just one. Guna PC was won by Jyotiraditya Scindia in 2004, 2009 and 2014 while Chindwara has been won by Kamal Nath and his son Nakul Nath since 2004. However, the margin in Chhindwara was more than 10% in only 2009 and 2014, when Kamal Nath was the winner. Scindia is contesting the 2024 elections from Guna from the BJP.
• Does the 2023 election result show any strong PCs for the Congress?

  The Congress won just 66 out of the 230 assembly constituencies (ACs) in the 2023 Madhya Pradesh elections. Do the 2023 results show any strong PCs for the Congress in these elections? An extrapolation of AC-wise results to PCs shows that the BJP and the Congress had leads in 24 and five PCs respectively. Of the five PCs where the Congress had a lead, it was the largest in Chhindwara with a margin of 7% of the total votes polled. Can the Congress hope to retain some of these PCs in 2024? While one must wait for June 4 to answer this question, it is useful to reiterate that in 2019, the Congress was able to retain just one out of the 12 PCs in which it had leads in the 2018 assembly elections.