Lok Sabha election results 2019: Congress hurt in heartland, trends suggest no assembly poll advantage in MP, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan

After registering a tri-state victory in the Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh Assembly polls held in 2018, trends suggest that the Congress has lost ground in the heartland states, failing to capitalise on its assembly poll victories.

Early trends have suggested a lead for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in all the three states, with a near-sweep in all of them.

The saffron party is leading in 28 of 29 Parliamentary seats in Madhya Pradesh, 24 of 25 seats in Rajasthan and nine of 11 seats in Chhattisgarh.

In Chhattisgarh, the Congress had stormed to power by winning 68 of the 90 Assembly seats in the state, with the BJP being reduced to 15 seats.

In Madhya Pradesh, the BJP had lost by a close margin, winning 109 seats of the 230-member Assembly, while the Congress won 114 seats and formed a coalition government after the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which had won two seats, extended support.

In Rajasthan, Congress had managed to win 99 seats while its pre-poll alliance partner, Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), won one seat, taking the tally up to 100— the majority mark in a 200-member Assembly.

All the three states were being ruled by the BJP before the 2018 Assembly polls.

The leads were in line with the exit poll projections, which had given the BJP around 24-27 seats in Madhya Pradesh, seven to nine in Chhattisgarh and 22-23 seats in Rajasthan.

During the 2013 Assembly elections, BJP had won all the three heartland states by considerable margins. In Madhya Pradesh, the BJP had secured 165 seats while the Congress had won 58. During the subsequent Lok Sabha polls, the BJP had won 26 seats, reducing the Congress to three.

In Rajasthan, BJP had won 163 seats while Congress had managed to win only 21 seats. In the 2014 General Elections, BJP had managed to sweep all the 25 seats while Congress had drawn a blank.

Similarly, in Chhattisgarh, while the BJP had won 49 seats in the assembly polls to Congress' 39, it had managed to win 10 Parliamentary seats from the state, losing one to Congress.