The BJP has been restricted to just 240 seats in the Lok Sabha, 32 short of the majority mark of 272. More than 23.59 crore people voted for the party — 36.56% of the total votes. The fate of the party could have been different had it received arout six lakh more votes on 32 seats, where its losing margin was low.
News18 analysed the performance of the parties on these 32 seats across the country that could have changed the election’s outcome. On at least five seats, the saffron party’s loss margin was less than 5,000 — Chandigarh (2,504), Dhule (3,831) in Maharashtra and Hamirpur (2,629), Salempur (3,573) and Dhaurahra (4,449) in Uttar Pradesh.
Further, the BJP lost Daman & Diu (6,225), Arambagh (6,399) in West Bengal and Beed (6,553) in Maharashtra by less than 7,000-margin. Arambagh has voted in the Trinamool Congress since 2014. The party retained its hold even this time as first-timer Bag Mitali won the polls with 7.12 lakh votes.
Similarly, in South Goa, where the BJP last won in 2014, the party gave a tough fight to the Congress. The latter’s candidate Viriato Fernandes won by a margin of 13,535 votes. The Congress had won the seat in 2019 too, though the winning margin that time was 9,755 votes.
The BJP failed by a margin of close to 16,000 votes in Aonla in Uttar Pradesh and Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala. Shashi Tharoor has entered the Lok Sabha for a fourth time from Kerala’s capital, defeating Rajeev Chandrasekhar in the latter’s Lok Sabha election debut. Chandrasekhar was a cabinet minister and three-term Rajya Sabha MP.
On just five seats, the losing margin of the BJP was more than 30,000. Bihar’s Buxar (30,091), Banaskantha in Gujarat (30,406), Bankura (32,778) in West Bengal, and Fatehpur (33,199) and Kheri (34,329) in Uttar Pradesh could have changed the BJP’s fate too.
Lowest Margin in Seats With Sitting MPs in the Fray
Except Chandigarh, in all four seats where the losing margin of the BJP was below 5,000 votes, the sitting two-time BJP MPs lost.
In Dhule, sitting MP Subhash Bhamre, who was elected in 2014 and 2019 with massive mandates, failed to save the seat for the party. Congress’s Bachhav Shobha Dinesh, a first-time MP, bagged the seat with 5.83 lakh votes.
A similar picture unfolded in Hamirpur where two-term MP Pushpendra Chandel could not save the seat. Samajwadi Party’s Ajendra Singh Lodhi got 4.90 lakh votes. He is also a first-time MP.
Ravindra Kushwaha in Salempur also suffered the same fate, losing the seat he had won twice with massive mandates. Kushwaha lost to Samajwadi Party’s Ramashankar Rajbhar. The SP candidate is a former MP from the seat, elected in 2009, as on BSP ticket.
SP’s first-time MP Anand Bhadauriya has made it to the Lok Sabha with 4.43 lakh votes. The BJP’s two-term MP Rekha Verma failed to retain the seat.
Lalubhai Patel had been the BJP MP from Daman and Diu since 2009. Umesh Babubhai Patel, an Independent candidate, won this time by a margin of 6,225 votes. Babubhai Patel had tried his luck last time too, but managed to get just 19,938 votes.
Dharmendra Kashyap, the sitting MP from Aonla, was hoping for a third term but lost to SP’s Neeraj Kushwaha Maurya, a two-time MLA and first-time MP. Maurya got 4.92 lakh votes against Kashyap’s 4.76 lakh.
Gulbarga in Karnataka had voted for the Congress non-stop since 1999 and elected Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge in 2009 and 2014. In 2019, he lost to BJP’s Umesh Jadhav by a margin of 95,457 votes. This was the third time since 1952 when the Congress failed in the seat after 1996 and 1998. While the BJP trusted Jadhav, the Congress named Radhakrishna Doddamani, son-in-law of Kharge. The Congress won by a margin of just 27,205 votes.
Changing Candidate Resulted in Narrower Losing Margin for BJP
In 2014 and 2019, Chandigarh had voted for BJP’s Kirron Kher. In 2014, her winning margin was close to 70,000 votes and in 2019 it was around 47,000. This time, the BJP replaced the candidate and fielded Sanjay Tandon instead. Congress leader Manish Tewari won the 2024 polls as he secured 2.16 lakh votes. This is Tewari’s third term in the Lok Sabha after 2009 and 2019.
Beed, traditionally a BJP seat, had been a stronghold of the Gopinath Munde family. Except for the 2004, the seat has voted for the BJP since 1996. Gopinath Munde was elected in 2009 and 2014. Post his death soon after the 2014 polls, his daughter Pritam was elected in 2014 bypolls and the 2019 general elections. In 2024, the BJP fielded her elder sister Pankaja, who lost against Sharad Pawar’s NCP candidate Bajrang Manohar Sonwane, a first-time MP.
Mumbai North Central seat has voted twice for the BJP and its candidate Poonam Mahajan, in 2014 and 2019. But this time, the BJP dropped her and fielded senior lawyer Ujjwal Nikam who lost to senior Congress leader and former MLA Varsha Gaikwad. While she got 4.45 lakh votes, Nikam was a little behind with 4.29 lakh votes.
Two-term Sonipat BJP MP Ramesh Chander Kaushik had in 2019 defeated one of the tallest leaders in Haryana Congress, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, the two-term Chief Minister and five-time Lok Sabha MP. BJP replaced Kaushik with Mohan Lal Badoli in 2024. He lost to Congress leader Satpal Brahamchari by a margin of just 21,816 votes. Brahamchari, although a senior politician, was active in politics in Uttarakhand for around two decades and came back for the 2024 contest.
Replacing candidates in Mumbai North East also did not help the BJP in retaining the seat. The constituency that voted for the BJP in 2014 and 2019, voted for Shiv Sena-UBT for the first time in 2024 as Uddhav Thackeray’s candidate Sanjay Dina Patil won by a margin of 29,861 votes.
In Karnataka’s Davanagere Lok Sabha, the BJP has been undefeated since 2004. Replacing the four-time MP GM Siddeshwara, the party trusted his wife Gayathri Siddeshwara in 2024. She lost by a margin of 26,094 votes against first-timer Prabha Mallikarjun, also from a political family.
The BJP faced the same fate in Bihar’s Buxar and Rajasthan’s Jhunjhunu. Union Minister Ashwani Kumar Choubey was a two-time MP from Buxar, but was denied a ticket this time.
Turncoats Failed Too
The BJP was hopeful about Ludhiana in Punjab as it had fielded two-term sitting Congress MP Ravneet Singh Bittu in its team. Bittu, the grandson of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh, had switched to the BJP earlier this year. He had won the seat in 2014 and 2019 as Congress candidate, even when there was a wave for the BJP across the country. The Congress fielded its three-time MLA and Punjab unit chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring. The Congress defeated the BJP by 20,942 votes.
Thirupathi in Andhra Pradesh had voted for Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) since 2014. V Varaprasad Rao, a former YSRCP MP from the seat, switched sides to the BJP in March and was given the ticket. The YSRCP won the polls by a margin of 14,569 votes as its sitting MP Maddila Gurumoorthy was re-elected.
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