For a poll that many predicted would see close finishes, the margin of victory by the end of Thursday showed that apart from two seats, the BJP romped home comfortably.
In 2014, the average margin of victory for the BJP was 1.26 lakh votes. This time, it is an incredible 1.66 lakh votes, winning 17 seats with margins of more than 1 lakh (compared to nine seats in 2014).
The party consolidated its leads in 13 of the 17 seats it had won in 2014. The biggest increase is seen in Uttara Kannada, where Union Minister Anantkumar Hegde won by 4.79 lakh votes, which is not just an increase in margin of more than 3.3 lakh votes, but also the highest ever victory margin to be recorded in the State.
In Bengaluru South, BJP’s Tejasvi Surya’s victory margin has cemented his place in the constituency, which was represented by the late Ananth Kumar since 1996. Despite the murmurs of discontent over his nomination, he won by 3.31 lakh votes — the largest ever margin in the constituency.
The largest decrease in victory margin for the BJP was in Shivamogga, which saw an intense electoral contest between Madhu Bangarappa of the JD(S) and B.Y. Raghavendra of the BJP, who eventually won by 2.2 lakh votes. It was here that former Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa had won by more than 3.5 lakh votes — then a State record — in 2014.
Among the eight additional seats BJP has won this time, only Chamarajanagar and Tumakuru were nail-biting finishes.
Of particular mention are the margins in Kolar (2.1 lakh votes) and Chickballapur (1.82 lakh votes) where the BJP has never won before.
In 2014, the Congress had won three seats (Chickballapur, Raichur, and Chikkodi) and JD(S) won Mandya with a margin of less than 10,000 votes. This time, these four seats have registered margins of more than 1 lakh votes (three to BJP and one to an Independent)
Two seats
Having lost what were their bastions, the coalition managed to clinch two seats with a considerable margin.
In Hassan, Prajwal Revanna of the JD(S) managed to improve on the 2014 margin of his grandfather, H.D. Deve Gowda, by more than 40,000 votes.
Even though Congress’ D.K. Suresh won by more than 2 lakh votes, it represents a slight dip — of around 20,000 votes — from the 2014 election.
The BSP factor
The breaking away of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) from the State government may have cost the Congress-JD(S) alliance victory in the tightly fought Chamrajanagar Lok Sabha seat. While Chamrajanagar saw a cliffhanger on Thursday, the BSP racked up its best ever parliamentary performance in a State.
BJP’s V. Srinivas Prasad beat the alliance’s R. Dhruvanarayana by 1,817 votes, the third-lowest in LS elections in the State in the past two decades. However, out of the limelight, BSP secured 87,631 votes, garnering their largest ever votes in a parliamentary constituency in the State and perhaps effectively seeing that the Congress lost another seat.
Another twist to the plot was playing out in Tumakuru where the JD(S)’s H.D. Deve Gowda lost out to G.S. Basavaraj by 13,339 votes. Here, BSP got 6,000 votes and the Communist Party of India — which extended its support to the alliance in constituencies they were not contesting — got 17,227 votes. Ironically, the CPI and the Left parties were critical in the selection of Mr. Deve Gowda as the Prime Minister in 1996.