16 of the 20 bellwether seats across India have elected the ruling party BJP

Elections are over and as predicted, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led NDA government has turned out to be a winner with more than 340 seats in its tally.

India Today’s Data Intelligence Unit had earlier found that in the last five elections, there were at least 20 such seats which had always elected a party/alliance that formed the government at the centre. Checking the results of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, 16 of those twenty ‘bellwether’ seats have elected the BJP+ this time as well, maintaining the pattern for the sixth consecutive time.

The four seats that didn’t follow the trend were from Andhra Pradesh (Kakinada, Rajahmundry and Amalapuram), where the YSR Congress Party, which didn’t had a pre poll alliance neither with INC nor the BJP and Dharmapuri in Tamil Nadu which was won by DMK, an INC ally.

Interestingly, as of trends till 6 pm Thursday, the India Today-Axis My India post poll study had a 93 per cent correct prediction rate on seat by seat basis. Of the 20 erstwhile bellwether seats, 19 seats’ prediction turned out to be true.

Seat by seat analysis

These seventeen bellwether seats gave the BJP an easy win in 16 of the 20 bellwether seats.

North

BJP had a clean sweep in the eight north Indian bellwether seats. The victory margin of all the north Indian bellwether seats (till the time the story was filed) was more than 2 lakh votes per candidate.

In Jammu, BJP’s Jugal Kishore led the seat by a margin of 3 lakh votes. In Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi, BJP’s Ram Swaroop Sharma defeated Aashray Sharma of Congress, giving him a second term from the seat.

From Haryana’s Faridabad seat, Krishan Pal of the BJP won by a whopping margin of 6.17 lakh votes, defeating Congress candidate Avtar Singh Bhadana.

From Bhiwani-Mahendragarh constituency, BJP’s Dharambir Singh won by 4.3 lakh votes and BJP’s Nayab Singh won from the Kurukshetra seat.

BJP did a clean sweep of Delhi where it won all seven seats including the three bellwether ones it has.

New Delhi gave a second term to Meenakshi Lekhi, who defeated Congress party’s Ajay Maken. Last time Lekhi had won by a margin of 1.6 lakh votes. By the time this story was filed, she had led the seat by more than 2.5 lakh votes.

Similarly, voters of Chandni Chowk constituency gave a second term to Harsh Vardhan Singh who defeated Jai Prakash Agarwal of Congress. Last time Harsh Vardhan had won by a margin of 1.3 lakh votes. This time it has increased to 2.2 lakh votes.

In east Delhi, Aam Aadmi Party had fielded its strong candidate Atishi. However she managed to only come in at the third position. Cricketer-turned- politician and BJP candidate Gautam Gambhir defeated Congress’s Arvinder Singh Lovely by a margin of around 4 lakh votes.

West

Like Delhi, BJP did a clean swept of all Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat, including the three bellwether seats it has.

Valsad, a seat reserved for the Scheduled Tribes, has always elected the ruling party/alliance since 1977, making 2019 no different. BJP’s candidate KC Patel defeated Congress’s Jitubhai Chaudhari by a margin of 3.5 lakh votes.

In Banaskantha, BJP’s Parthabhai Patel led the seat by 3.6 lakh votes defeating Congress’s Parthibhai Bhatol.

In Gujarat’s Jamnagar seat, BJP candidate Poonamben Maadam defeated Congress’s Kandoriya Ranmalbhai by more than 2 lakh votes.

In Mumbai North, Congress had fielded celebrity turned politician Urmila Matondkar. But she lost and the incumbent MP from the seat Gopal Shetty got another term.

East

Jharkhand has two bellwether seats both which were won by BJP candidates. Vishnu Dayal Ram from Palamau won the seat by 4.7 lakh votes. Ranchi witnessed a three-way fight between Congress, BJP and independent candidate Subodh Kant Sahay. He quit the BJP after he wasn’t given a ticket from the seat.

Chhedi Paswan won from Sasaram constituency once again defeating Congress candidate Meira Kumar by 1.65 lakh votes.

South

The southern part of the country witnessed huge changes and lower margins, as far as the bellwether seats are considered. Four of the five seats from the south that had elected a ruling party or an alliance for the last five elections broke the trend this time, thus losing their bellwether tag.

Of the five bellwether seats in South India, only one seat had a margin of a victory of over 1 lakh – Andhra Pradesh’s Rajahmundry

Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSR Congress Party didn’t form any pre-poll alliance with anyone and bagged all 25 seats in Andhra Pradesh including the three bellwether seats Kakinada, Rajahmundry and Amalapuram.

In Tamil Nadu, there was a tough fight between DMK (a Congress ally) and PMK (a BJP ally) candidates. At the time of filing this story, DMK’s DNV Senthilkumar S was ahead of Anbumani Ramadoss of the PMK by 63,000 votes.

G Kishan Reddy led the Secunderabad seat in Telangana by a margin of 62,000 votes.

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