The party, which had secured only nine seats with a meagre 12.04 per cent vote in the 2004 general election, experienced an increase of 6.21 per cent this time around, taking its total vote share to a healthy 18.25 per cent.
Interestingly, the Congress had secured only 8.56 per cent vote in the 2007 assembly elections in UP. Within a span of two years its vote share has jumped by nearly 10 per cent.
Not only did the Congress increase its vote share, it was also able to wrest as many as 12 seats from its opponents. It also secured the second position in the state behind the SP and relegated the mighty Bahujan Samaj Party to the third spot. In contrast, the vote share of all the other parties—the SP, BSP and the BJP— registered a decline this time in comparison with the 2007 assembly polls in the state.
The Bahujan Samaj Party, which had secured a whopping 30.46 per cent votes only two years back in the assembly polls, saw its share decline by around 3 per cent.
It got 27.42 per cent votes this time.
However, if one compares the Bahujan Samaj Party’s vote share from the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, one finds an increase of around 2.5 per cent.
The Samajwadi Party, which had emerged as the largest party in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections with 35 seats and a vote share of 26.74, suffered heavy losses this time. Not only did it lose 12 seats but its vote share also declined over three per cent to 23.26 per cent.
Interestingly, the BJP, which was able to retain its tally of ten seats, witnessed a sharp decline this time.
In the 2004 general election, the BJP had secured 22.17 per cent votes but this time around its vote share came down to 17.50 per cent behind the Congress. Chaudhary Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal, which had contested the polls in alliance with the BJP, was able to increase its tally of seats from three last time to five this time.
However, the vote share of the Rashtriya Lok Dal also registered a decline.
The Rashtriya Lok Dal had secured 4.49 per cent votes in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls but this time its vote share came down to only 3.27 pc.
DH News Service