How victory margins matter in heated contests between BJP and Congress

On April 29, Union defence minister Rajnath Singh filed his nomination from the prestigious Lucknow constituency for a third term amid much fanfare. He was accompanied by the chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, Yogi Adityanath and Pushkar Singh Dhami.

Despite the summer heat, the turnout at his roadshow was impressive. Enthusiastic Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers hailed Singh and the party and showered rose petals as his motorcade passed by. While thanking them for putting up a grand show, Singh advised them to ensure good voter turnout on May 20, the polling day.
Singh, for one, would like a bigger victory margin in 2024 than the one he won in 2019 when he — with a victory margin of 3.47 lakh votes — only ranked sixth in the hierarchy even though the margin was higher than 2.72 lakh-one in 2014.
For the majority of popular leaders in the fray, victory margins are equally if not more important than just contesting.
While Rajnath Singh had ranked sixth in the list of victory margins in 2019, General (retired) VK Singh from Ghaziabad topped the list. He polled 9.44 lakh votes while the runner-up from the Samajwadi Party (SP) secured 4.43 lakh votes, a big margin of 5.01 lakh votes. Interestingly, General Singh topped the victory margin list in 2014 as well.
In 2019, PM Modi was second on the list despite the prevailing “Modi wave”. Others who performed better than Rajnath Singh were Sakshi Maharaj in Unnao (four lakh votes), Anurag Sharma in Jhansi (3.65 lakh votes) and Ajay Mishra Teni in Lakhimpur (3.50 lakh) – all from the BJP.
Overall, about two dozen Lok Sabha seats were won by a margin of over two lakh votes in 2019.
Ironically, the retired general was dropped by the party’s high command for the 2024 polls, one of the trigger points for boycott calls and protests by the Rajputs, who had played a key role in his victory in 2019.
In 2014, Modi, then the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, landed in the holy city of Varanasi with his model of Hindutva and development. BJP campaigners had predicted seven lakh as his victory margin. Modi himself had told the party workers to ensure his victory at every booth level.
But Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Admi Party deprived them of that excitement by securing over two lakh votes, reducing Modi’s margin to 3.71 lakh votes.
In 2009, Congress chairperson Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi won in the seats they were contesting in – Rae Bareli and Amethi — and were among the five toppers. Sonia Gandhi won by a margin of 3.72 lakh votes in Rae Bareli, Rahul Gandhi by 3.70 lakh votes in Amethi and Annu Tandon won by 3.02 lakh votes in Unnao; BJP’s Feroze Varun Gandhi’s victory margin was 2.81 lakh votes in Pilibhit and Yogi Adityanath’s margin of victory in Gorakhpur was 2.20 lakh.
In the subsequent elections in 2014 and 2019, the Gandhi victory margins reduced gradually. Sonia Gandhi’s victory margin in 2014 and 2019 came down to 3.52 lakhs and 1.67 lakhs respectively. Rahul Gandhi’s victory margin was 1.04 lakh in 2014 while he lost the seat by 55,000 votes in 2019.
Now that Sonia Gandhi has relinquished her seat, Rahul has decided to contest from Rae Bareli in 2024. He is in for a tough fight as the BJP will not leave any stone unturned to defeat him. In the run-up to the elections, the BJP had roped SP’s Manoj Pandey into the party and strategies are being drawn to ensure he loses from his family’s pocket borough.
In 2024, the common perception is that the BJP may manage to retain the 2019 tally of 64 in Uttar Pradesh but victory margins may reduce in what is turning into a straight battle between the BJP and the Opposition bloc.
Sunita Aron is a consulting editor with the HT based in Lucknow. You can find her on X as @overto. The weekly column, Keeping up with UP tackles everything from politics to social and cultural mores in the country’s most populous state. The views expressed are personal.