Numbers reveal just how badly BJP has done in J&K polls

A cursory look at the gross data reveals some worrying news for the BJP in the just concluded J&K Assembly elections. The BJP is the only party that has polled lesser number of votes than what it polled in the Lok Sabha polls six months ago. It actually polled almost 47 thousand votes less than it did six months ago. Imagine, such mobilisation of resources, so much more intense campaign, and you actually drop votes.

Party wise votes and share

And this is not because a lesser number of voters turned out to vote in the Assembly elections compared to the Lok Sabha polls. On the contrary, 13 lakh more votes were cast this time. It is an almost 33 per cent increase over the votes polled for the Lok Sabha.

Even more significant is the fact that only the BJP suffered this fate of faring poorer than how it did in the recent 2014 Lok Sabha polls. All other major parties - PDP, NC and the Congress - added to their votes in the Lok Sabha polls. While the PDP added 3.6 lakh votes to its Lok Sabha tally, the NC added a staggering 6 lakh votes to its tally. Even the Congress added 60 thousand votes to its Lok Sabha tally. For the NC, the gains are stupendous because they fought the Lok Sabha elections with the Congress and ended a miserable fourth. This time they fought alone and secured two and a half times more votes. At 10 lakh votes they are only 92 thousand short of the PDP. In vote-share terms, NC secured about 21 per cent compared to PDP's almost 23 per cent. It is just that NC's votes were too thinly spread out across the state and the PDP was concentrated in the Valley. That explains the huge difference in their seat tally.

The big news is that the BJP dropped its vote-share from almost 33 per cent in the Lok Sabha to only 23 per cent in the Assembly polls; a staggering ten point drop. With the total votes polled increasing by 33 per cent, one inevitable conclusion is that the higher voter turnout was to stop the BJP. But that is not all. What is a bigger worry is that the BJP dropped almost one lakh votes in the Jammu and Ladakh region over its tally in the Lok Sabha. It has also cost the party a few seats that it could have won in both Jammu and Ladakh region. It represents Ladakh in Lok Sabha but drew a blank out of four assembly seats on offer there. It is here that the BJP will have to introspect. Did it alienate its core voters chasing a chimera in the Valley where it lost deposit in all but one constituency?