By PTI
NEW DELHI: The BJP has increased its vote share in four of the five states that went to polls in February-March, including a marginal rise in Punjab, where it managed to win just two seats.
In Uttar Pradesh, the saffron party’s vote share went up to 41.8 per cent as against 39.67 per cent in the 2017 Assembly polls, an increase of 2.13 per cent.
However, the number of seats won by the party saw a decline from 312 five years ago.
As of 7:30 pm on Thursday, the BJP had won 81 seats and was leading on 168 more.
The Samajwadi Party (SP) increased its vote share from 21.82 per cent in 2017 to 32.02 per cent and was projected to win 116 seats (21 won, 95 leading), thus consolidating its position as the key opposition party in the state.
The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which had secured 22.23 per cent votes in 2017, was on the third position with 12.66 per cent votes and was leading on just one seat.
The Mayawati-led party had won 19 seats five years ago.
The Akhilesh Yadav-led SP increased its vote share by 10.2 per cent, while the BSP’s vote share declined by 9.57 per cent.
The Congress had secured 6.25 per cent votes in 2017, which declined to 2.4 per cent.
Uttarakhand was the only state where the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) vote share declined to 44.3 per cent from 46.5 per cent in 2017.
While the party had won 57 of the 70 seats in the hill state in 2017, it had won 32 seats and was leading on 15 more on Thursday.
The vote share of the Congress declined in all the states barring Uttarakhand.
Ironically, the increase in vote share in Uttarakhand did not reflect in the number of seats as the party had won 13 seats and was leading on six more, a marginal increase from the 11 seats it had won in 2017.
In Goa, the vote share of the BJP saw a slight increase from 32.5 per cent in 2017 to 33.3 per cent, but the party won 20 seats — seven more than it had bagged five years ago.
The Congress’s vote share in the coastal state declined from 28.4 per cent in 2017 to 23.5 per cent.
It had won 17 seats in Goa five years ago and was projected to win 11 on Thursday.
The fortunes of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) saw a sharp upturn in Punjab, where it won 92 seats on Thursday as compared to the 20 it had won in 2017.
In terms of vote share, the Arvind Kejriwal-led party bagged 42 per cent of the votes polled, as against the 23.7 per cent it had secured five years ago.
The Congress’s vote share slumped in Punjab from 38.5 per cent in 2017 to 23 per cent, with the party holding on to just 18 seats as against the 77 it had won five years ago.
The BJP’s vote share in Punjab increased marginally from 5.4 per cent in 2017 to 6.6 per cent.
However, the party managed to win just two seats as against the three it had won in 2017, when it had contested the polls in an alliance with the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD).
The SAD managed to secure 18.48 per cent votes as against 25.2 per cent five years ago.
In Manipur, the BJP’s vote share went up to 37.5 per cent from 36.3 per cent in 2017.
The number of seats it won also increased to 32 from 21.
The Congress’s fortunes dipped in the northeastern state as it managed to hold on to a 16.5 per cent vote share as compared to the 35.1 per cent it had secured in 2017.
The Conrad Sangma-led National People’s Party (NPP), which contested the polls on its own, saw its vote share increase from 5.1 per cent to 16.48 per cent.
The party was set to double its number of seats from four in 2017, as it had won six and was leading on two more.
