The BJP experienced a slight dip in its national vote share, falling from 37.3% in 2019 to 36.6% in 2024. However, this small decline led to a significant drop in its seat count, which fell by 63 from 303 to 240, leaving the party below the halfway mark. Meanwhile, Congress saw a modest increase in its vote share, moving from 19.5% in the last election to 21.2%.
The BJP’s national vote share drop translated into a substantial decrease in its seat tally, putting it well below the halfway mark. In contrast, Congress’s vote share increase nearly doubled its seat count from 52 to 99.
The large variation in seat tallies despite minor changes in vote share is due to the aggregation of state-level results. A party may gain vote share in a state where it is starting from a low base, resulting in no seat gains, while losing the same amount in a highly competitive state could cost many seats.
This scenario played out for the BJP this time. For instance, its vote share in Tamil Nadu rose from 3.6% in 2019 to 11.2% in 2024, but this did not translate into any additional seats. Similarly, an increase from 9.6% to 18.6% in Punjab did not yield any seats without an alliance, resulting in the loss of the two seats it previously held.
Conversely, a drop of about three percentage points in Bihar, from 23.6% to 20.5%, cost the BJP five seats, while a mere 1.6 percentage point drop in West Bengal resulted in a loss of six seats. The most dramatic instance occurred in Maharashtra, where a 1.4 percentage point drop from 27.6% to 26.2% led to winning less than half the seats (10 versus 23).
Congress presented an almost mirror image of this. In Maharashtra, a rise in vote share of less than one percentage point, from 16.3% to 17.1%, saw its seat tally jump from one to 13. In Rajasthan, an increase in vote share from 34.2% to 37.9% resulted in winning eight seats instead of none. In Uttar Pradesh, a rise in vote share from 6.3% to 9.5% saw its seat tally go from one to six.
The third-largest party, Samajwadi Party (SP), achieved its highest tally ever of 37 seats in the Lok Sabha by significantly raising its vote share from 18% to 33.5%. Combined with Congress’s 9.5%, the INDIA bloc in the state had a 43% vote share, creating a neck-and-neck battle with the NDA. Last time, the SP-BSP combine’s 37.3% was a far cry from the NDA’s 50%-plus vote share. This dramatic closing of the gap, which few had anticipated in the absence of BSP from the opposition alliance, was the game changer in Uttar Pradesh.