Every election, state or national is also the story of big wins, narrow losses, a nail-biting finish. This time, the Gujarat 2017 state election (results of which were known yesterday) were so much more. For the first time since Narendra Modi took charge of the state, there was a serious challenge to his being able to see his party through. The saffron hued BJP, armed with a viciously polarising arsenal, made it finally. But only just.
For all the 150 plus seats bluster byBJP party president, Amit Shah, the EVMs which are just faulty enough to vote BJP out of the 30 odd parties on any machine, the questionably opartisan attitude of the Election Commission, the 50 plus Modi rallies, the 18 central ministers parked all over the state, the deliberate polarisation by the prime minister in his speeches (that did not attract any reprimand from the CEC), the fake Pakistani conspiracy campaign and the naughty Ahmed Patel for CM posters, the BJP has just won by 8 odd seats. This tells its own story
This indicates five things:
1) It is still easy to sell Vikas on the back of religious polarisation
2) The cities of this country are full of ‘educated illiterates’ who neither understand economics nor low social indicators after 22 years of governance.
3) Not a single exit poll has come close to the actual figure clearly suggesting how deeply the media has been compromised and paid off
4) Rahul Gandhi is a serious challenge than anybody ever gave him credit for and
5) The BJP is no longer going to get 2019 on a platter
So forget Vikas and get ready for some scary times where hate-bartering and polarisation will be used to reap in votes. We may see more incidents like the ghastly killings by the mobs of the more gau-rakshaks backed by the brigands of the VHP and the Bajrang Dals. Because Gujarat just proved that is how the right wing pulls back a losing election.
2019 is going to be dirty business. Good luck Good luck.
And what about the EVMs?
These three images tell their own story. More votes polled than registered. We yet do not know what the EC is doing about this.
Evm surat
Evm Vedroad
EVM 3
And do what this Video
Concerned citizens have started this FB page
https://www.facebook.com/back2ballot/
More Interesting facts and figures
The Congress, India’s major opposition party, written off as a has been by an increasingly rapacious media polled as many as 85 lakh votes in 2014, three years ago when the Modi wave swept India into an abyss.
Three and a half years later, in 2017, Congress got nearly 1 crore 25 lakh votes. This is a whopping 47% increase!
The BJP’s vote fell from 1 crore 52 lakh (2014) to 1 crore 47 lakh (2017).
The number of total votes polled increased by 39 lakh, yet BJP’s share fell by 5 lakh votes.
However, of course, BJP still won 49.1% votes.
The Gujarat election results declared today revealed a tight contest in assembly seats such as Himatnagar, Porbandar, Vijapur, Deodar, Dangs, Mansa and Godhra. The BJP and Congress were locked in a nail-biting contest in at least 16 seats in Gujarat, where the victory margin was less than 2,000 votes and of just about 200 votes in a few.
Spoilers: In seats like Dholka and Fatepura, smaller parties like NCP and BSP ate into the crucial votes which some described as snatching of near-certain victories from the Congress. The independents also scored big in some seats.
The assembly seats to have seen a photo-finish included Himatnagar, Porbandar, Vijapur, Deodar, Dangs, Mansa and Godhra. At many places, independent candidates, primarily rebels, cut votes of either of the two main parties.
In tribal-dominated Dangs, Congress managed a slender margin of 768 over the nearest rival BJP while in Kaprada, another ST seat, the Congress snatched victory by a mere 170 votes.
The NOTA option polled 1.8 per cent of the total votes and a huge 5 lakh of the Gujarati voter said no to both the BJP, Congress and all contestants.
There were at least eight seats, where Congress candidates trailed their nearest rivals by less than 2,000 votes, including in Godhra where BJP’s CK Raulji won by just 258 votes. The NOTA or none-of-the-above votes counted 3,050 in Godhra and one independent candidate got over 18,000 votes to finish third.
Again, in the Dholka constituency, Congress lost by a margin of 327 votes. Significantly, in this seat, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Nationalist Congress Party bagged 3,139 and 1,198 votes, respectively.
Similarly at the Fatepura seat, where BJP won by a margin of 2,711 votes over the Congress, the NCP candidate got 2747 votes. The NCP played spoiler for the Congress here.
Congress lost the Botad seat by a margin of 906 votes where BSP bagged 966 votes. Three independents collectively got around 7,500 votes here. So BSP and independents cost the Congress this seat.
The BJP had its share of narrow misses as well. Apart from Kaprada constituency, the party lost the Mansa seat by a vote of 524 votes and the Deodar seat by 972 votes.
Takeaways for the opposition Congress Party from the Gujarat Elections
1) Significant increase in votes received
2) Seats that slipped:
a. Congress could not hold on 15 seats that it win in 2012. That made the difference.
b. Of these 4 were ST seats. Last time it had won 3 of these 4 huge margins of 15-25 thousand votes.
c. Another four seats were those, in which sitting MLAs have lost to the BJP.
d. It was these seats that made a difference between forming the government and opposition.
3) Impact of revolt by Vaghela neutralised
a. Out of 14 seats, where its MLAs had defected to BJP, Congress won 10.
b. Another 2 it narrowly lost by margins of 258 and 1164 votes.
c. Congress won both the seats held by Shankar Singh Vaghela and his son, i.e. Kapadvanj and Bayad by huge margins of 27,226 and 7901 votes. This must come as satisfaction to Congress.
d. The party floated by Shankar Singh Vaghela got only 84 thousand votes in total!
4) Congress lost 16 seats in a tight contest:
a. Congress lost 3 seats with margins less than 1000 votes.
b. Congress lost 5 seats with margins between 1000-2000 votes.
c. Congress lost 8 seats with margins between 2000-3000 votes.
d. BJP lost 12 seats in close fights.
e. BJP lost four seats with margin less than 1000 votes.
f. BJP lost five seats with margins between 1000-2000 votes.
g. BJP lost three seats with margins between 2000-3000 votes.
5) Disaster in cities
a. Congress won only 3 out of 36 city seats!
b. In semi urban seats, Congress won 12 out of 27 seats
c. In rural areas, Congress+ won 65 out of 119 seats. BJP won 51.
d. Congress alliance won 13 out 21 tribal seats with an average margin of over 17 thousand votes.
6) Margins
a. Congress lost 15 sitting seats to BJP.
b. BJP retained 82 sitting seats with reduced margins.
c. The average margin of BJP victory is 29967 votes.
d. The average margin of Congress victory is 13354 votes.
e. In 33 city seats, the average margin of BJP victory is 47626 votes.
f. In semi-urban seats, average margin of BJP victory is 20526 and Congress is14249.
g. In rural areas, the average margin of BJP victory is 21316 and of Congress is 13155.
h. In ST seats, the average margin of BJP victory is 19,716 and Congress is over 17,218.
7) What clicked for Congress
a. It ran a successful campaign.
b. It was able to communicate with voters.
c. Rahul Gandhi led from the front and connected with the voters.
d. The social media campaign was a hit.
e. It could respond quickly to issues raised by BJP and PM.
f. It successfully formed social alliances.
g. It very well connected with rural voters.
h. It managed the seats of the defected MLAs well.
What didn’t click for Congress
a. It had a poor ground level organization.
b. It lacked a proper response to BJP’s aggression on ‘Nationalism’ and its ‘Anti-muslim’ propaganda.
c. It fell short of social engineering at the ‘sub-caste’ level.
d. It is still not able to connect with a large section of urban voters.
e. Social media defamation of Congress and Rahul Gandhi in cities still has a negative impact.
f. The GST and employment campaign did have a resonance, but more was required to address aspirational urban voter, who needs to be communicated of Congress record of economic progress, infrastructure development etc.
g. An answer required against the charges of corruption, most of which emerged from the notional losses projected by CAG in UPA regime.