India Today's Data Intelligence Unit analysed the margins of victory for the 543 winners and found that while many candidates won easily, several seats witnessed a nail-biting finish.
A voter's finger being marked with indelible ink by a polling official during voting. (File photo: PTI)
New Delhi,UPDATED: Jun 5, 2024 23:27 IST
Lok Sabha 2024 elections concluded on June 4, revealing some surprising trends that changed the political landscape. The BJP-led NDA returned to power with 292 seats, but after battling some close contests.
India Today's Data Intelligence Unit analysed the margins of victory for the 543 winners and found that while many candidates won easily, several seats witnessed a nail-biting finish.
Rakibul Hussain of the Indian National Congress had the largest victory margin, winning the Dhubri constituency in Assam by over 10 lakh votes. He was followed by Shivraj Singh Chouhan, former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, who won the Vidisha constituency by over 8 lakh votes.
The third largest margin was by BJP’s CR Patil, who won the Navsari constituency in Gujarat by 7.7 lakh votes. Though this was an improvement over his 2019 record when he had the highest victory margin of all candidates with 6.89 lakh votes, he slipped from his previous first position to third this time.
NARROWEST MARGINS
The toughest fight was won by Ravindra Dattaram Waikar of Shiv Sena, who defeated his opponent, Amol Gajanan Kirtikar of Shiv Sena (UBT), by merely 48 votes in the Mumbai North West constituency in Maharashtra. Interestingly, NOTA in the same constituency got 15,161 votes.
Another close call was the win by Adoor Prakash of INC, who beat his rival V Joy of CPI (M) by just 684 votes in Kerala's Attingal constituency. Prakash is followed by BJP’s Rabindra Narayan Behera from Jajpur, Odisha, who had the third narrowest victory margin of 1,587 votes.
LOWEST & HIGHEST MARGINS
Seventeen candidates from three major parties won with a narrow margin of less than 5,000 votes. Seven of these candidates are from BJP, six are from INC, and three are from SP.
At the same time, 33 candidates won with margins of over 4 lakh votes. Of these, 24 are from BJP. The TMC had two candidates with such a large margin. The Communist Party of India (Marxist), Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, INC, and Telugu Desam each had one candidate who won with a margin of more than 4 lakh votes.
NOTA VS MARGINS
None of the Above or NOTA played a significant role in the 2024 elections. For the first time since its introduction in 2014, NOTA received more than 2.1 lakh votes in a single constituency (Indore) in Madhya Pradesh. Here, Shankar Lalwani of the BJP was the only candidate contesting against the NOTA.
There were 20 seats where NOTA received more votes than the margin of victory. Of these 20 seats, the BJP won eight, the INC won five, and the SP won three.
The highest votes polled by NOTA, apart from outlier Indore, was in Sheohar, Bihar where it received over 30,000 votes. This is followed by Bishnupur in West Bengal, where NOTA got more than 19,000 votes while the victory margin for the winning candidate in the constituency was only about 5,500 votes. One of the widest gaps between NOTA and the winner’s victory margin was in Kanker, Chhattisgarh, where NOTA polled about 18,600 votes and the margin was a mere 1,800 votes.
Published By:
Sahil Sinha
Published On:
Jun 5, 2024
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