Congress and BSP are holding talks on a seat-sharing arrangement in Madhya Pradesh, which sources said was almost hammered out.
Also written by Aaromal Dcruz
As the Congress and BSP negotiate the contours of a possible seat-sharing deal ahead of three crucial assembly elections, a pooling of votes polled in the 2013 Madhya Pradesh assembly election show that the BJP tally would have reduced by 41 seats had the Congress and BSP come together.
While the BJP would have still formed government in MP, the BJP tally in Chhattisgarh would have reduced by 11 seats and the Congress-BSP alliance would have been in a position to form the government. And in Rajasthan, the BJP’s tally could have decreased by nine seats.
The three BJP-ruled states will go to polls in November this year and Madhya Pradesh Congress president Kamal Nath is holding talks with BSP chief Mayawati on a seat-sharing arrangement, which sources said was almost hammered out.
The BSP had contested 227 of the 230 seats in Madhya Pradesh in 2013 and won four with a vote share of 6.42 per cent. Incidentally, the difference in vote share between the BJP and Congress was 8.4 per cent. Then, the BJP had won 165 seats, while the Congress secured 58.
If the total votes polled by the Congress and BSP in every MP assembly segment in the state are pooled, the two parties would have won 103 seats — that’s a difference of 41 assembly seats. Even in this situation, the BJP would have remained the single largest party with 124 seats.
The difference is starker in Chhattisgarh, where after the election BJP won 49 seats of the 90 seats to form the government. The Congress won 39 and the BSP one seat taking their total to 40. But if the votes secured by the Congress and BSP are combined, data shows a shift of 11 seats away from BJP. The combination means the Congress-BSP alliance would have won 51 seats and the BJP 38.
While a possible Congress-BSP alliance in Rajasthan would have seen a shift in 11 seats, the BJP, which won 163 of the 200-seat House, would still easily form the government. In 2013, the Congress won 21 seats and BSP 3. The remaining 13 seats went to others, including Independents.
The Congress-BSP combine in 2013 in Rajasthan would have won 34 seats at the cost of nine BJP seats and one National People’s Party (NPP) seat. A look at data along assembly constituencies that border Uttar Pradesh — where the BSP support base is strong — shows 62 seats in MP where the BJP had won 40 in 2013, the Congress 18 and the BSP four. If the Congress-BSP had contested in an alliance, data shows they could have won 46 seats with an increase of 24 while the BJP tally would have reduced by 24.
Rajasthan shares the border with UP along 11 assembly segments. In 2013, BJP won seven, the Congress three and BSP one. The alliance would have secured seven seats together and the BJP would have lost four seats. In three districts that border UP in Chhattisgarh, data shows no change for the Congress-BSP
alliance or the BJP.