2024 Lok Sabha election: BJP sees vote share slide by 1.25 percent in Gujarat compared to 2019 general elections

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) saw its vote share slip by 1.25 percentage points in Gujarat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections compared to 2019 general elections. The party polled 61.86 percent of votes this time compared to 63.11 percent in 2019, according to the Election Commission data. 

The combined vote share for INDIA bloc (combined vote shares of the Congress and Aam Aadmi Party), which contested in 25 constituencies, stood at 33.93 percent. Of this, Congress’s vote share was 31.24 percent and the AAP’s 2.69 percent. 

Throwing a surprise, Congress managed to wrest the Banaskantha seat from BJP in a neck-and-neck fight.

Geniben Thakor of the Congress party secured the Banaskantha Lok Sabha seat in Gujarat on Tuesday, defeating Rekha Chaudhary of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by a margin of 30,000 votes. 

This stopped BJP’s attempt to score a third consecutive clean sweep in all 26 seats in the home turf of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah. 

AAP failed to win the Bharuch and Bhavnagar seats where it fielded its candidates.  

In the 2019 elections, when Congress contested without any alliance it drew a blank. It had registered a vote share of 32.55 percent, the EC data showed. 

Congress had not won any seats in Gujarat in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections. However, in 2009, the party had won 11 out of 26 seats, while BJP bagged 14 seats.

Among other parties, the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which contested in all the 26 seats, saw a vote share of 0.76 percent, much lower than the vote share for NOTA (None of the Above) option, which stood at 1.56 percent.