Lucknow: Lucknow: Even as Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav set his party an ambitious target of increasing its share by at least 27,000 votes in every assembly constituency in UP, a close analysis of the 2022 assembly election results threw up an interesting electoral arithmetic: BJP won 141 seats by margins of less than 27,000 votes.
This was a sizable chunk of what BJP won in the 2022 assembly elections: 255 seats. BJP allies — AD (S) and Nishad Party — won 12 and 6 assembly seats, respectively, taking the NDA tally to an overwhelming majority of 273 seats. The poll position, as a matter of fact, underwent a dramatic change in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections when the Samajwadi Party wheeled out the Pichhda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak (PDA) poll narrative which is said to have dented BJP heavily, bringing down its tally from 62 in 2019 to just 33 seats. Data show that SP was ahead on at least 184 assembly segments during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Both RLD and SBSP snapped their alliance with SP and moved into the BJP-led camp ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha election, changing the alliance arithmetic considerably.
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The opposition tally, on the other hand, stood at 125 seats, with SP winning 111 seats while its then allies RLD and SBSP won eight and six seats, respectively. Data show that there were at least eight assembly seats like Dhampur, Nehtaur, Nakur, Baraut, Bilaspour, Katra, Moradabad Nagar and Kursi where the winning margin of BJP was less than 1,000 votes. Likewise, on 18 seats, BJP’s winning margin was between 1,000 and 5,000. The winning margin soared to between 5,000 and 10,000 in as many as 35 seats. On 18 seats, the margin stood between 15,000 and 20,000. This increased to between 20,000 and 25,000 on 31 seats. There were 14 seats — Pratapgarh, Bilsi, Baldev, Hamirpur, Haidergarh, Sawayazpur, Kadipur, Bulandshahr, Balamau, Ballia Nagar, Garhmukteshwar, Puranpur, Obra and Allahabad South — where the margin was between 25,000 and 27,000. An additional 27,000 votes for SP may not automatically translate into a 27,000-vote swing against BJP.
The data clearly suggested that if SP managed to touch its target, then it could have a significant bearing on the electoral dynamics in a large number of constituencies where BJP’s winning margin was relatively low. Analysts, however, point out an important caveat to the arithmetic. The outcome would rather depend on where these votes come from — whether they are new voters, transfers from BJP or other opposition parties, or increased turnout among existing SP supporters. The distribution of votes among BSP, Congress and smaller parties would thus matter significantly.
Importantly, the winning margin of SP in 93 out of 111 seats it won was within 27,000 votes. This suggested that SP itself was equally vulnerable to a vote swing and potentially faced the prospect of some of the seats slipping out to an aggressive saffron camp.