The BJP, and its previous incarnation, the Jana Sangh, were electoral arms of an aggressive Hindutva nationalist political outfit, the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh. We need to make a distinction between the longer term narrative and the immediate background. So what were the factors that led to this rise of the BJP? However, it had polled over 4% votes across India in 2014, and it does not seem to have increased that. But the SP barely retained its 5 seats with a slight drop in votes, while the BSP won 10 seats, up from zero in 2014. The Bahujan Samaj Party, which is the most powerful Dalit (the formerly untouchable castes who are still oppressed and marginalised despite the formal abolition of untouchability in the Indian constitution), had formed an alliance with the Samajwadi Party, the most powerful party of Other Backward Classes in the key province Uttar Pradesh. The final seat in both cases was held by the Revolutionary Socialist Party, allied to the CPI and the CPIM in West Bengal, but opposing them, and allied to the Congress in Kerala, from where it won one seat. The left had 11 seats in 2014 and 6 in 2019, of which the CPI and the CPI(M) together had 10 seats in 2014 and 5 in 2019. Among those most badly hit were, on the extreme right, the Trinamul Congress, which is the ruling party in West Bengal (34 in 2014, 22 in 2019), and on the left, the CPI and the CPI(M), the two major parliamentary fragments of the original Communist Party of India. In 2009 such parties had 122 seats, in 2014 147, while in 2019 this came down to 98. Parties outside the two blocs have fared worse than in 2014. It had no seats in 2014, and has secured 23 this time, making it the third largest party in parliament. The main gain for the UPA has come from the DMK in Tamil Nadu. In terms of vote share it has actually lost 0.8% compared to 2014. But the Congress seats have gone up from its worst ever performance of 44 seats to only 52, its second worst. In 2014 the UPA had 60 seats, while in 2019 it has 91. The main opposition bloc, the former ruling bloc for a decade from 2004 to 2014, was the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), led by the Indian National Congress. The two BJP allies who got badly mauled were the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu whose seats came down from 37 in 2014 to just 1 in 2019, and the Shiromani Akali Dal in the Punjab which got 2 seats. ![]() This involved the BJP getting 37.4% votes and the NDA as a whole claimed about 48% votes, which means practically one in two Indian voters voted BJP and its allies. ![]() In 2019, the BJP obtained 303 sears and the NDA as a whole 353. Given India’s first past the post system, opposition parties and intellectuals had often pointed out the voting percentages. Chandrababu Naidu, which had won 16 seats. Later, some of the NDA partners left, notably the Telugu Desam Party led by N. In 2014, the BJP won 282 seats with about 31% of the votes, and the NDA as a whole received 38.5% votes and 336 seats. Before we go into left responses, though, we have to begin by looking at what happened and explain why.Ī summary comparison between the 16 th and the 17 th Parliaments would be useful, as a starting point.
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