The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) impressive performance in the recently-concluded civic polls in urban and rural areas has turned it into a topper not only in terms of elected representatives but also in terms of vote share.
The party polled a total of 29.67% votes in the elections to 10 Municipal Corporations and 25 zilla parishads, much ahead of the Shiv Sena, which is a distant second with a vote share of 19.31%. The Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress polled just 17.47% and 16.46% of the total votes respectively.
Improved showing
Breaking the vote share in terms of urban and rural divide shows the BJP not only enhanced its performance in rural areas with a 24.91% vote share — winning 63.76 lakh votes of the total 2.55 crore — but also surpassed its urban competitor the Shiv Sena convincingly.
The NCP, which is at the number three position in overall figures, fared well in rural areas by winning 22.25% of the votes, which translates to 56.93 lakh votes. The Congress, which was relegated to the number four position, among the major parties in the State, polled 19.43% of the votes while the Sena polled 18.52%.
While the NCP seems to be putting up a fight against the BJP in rural areas, no party seems close to throwing it a challenge among urban voters.
The BJP won the urban areas (that is the 10 Municipal Corporations) with 34.02% of the vote, which is 95.17 lakh votes of the total 2.79 crore. The Sena, which was ranked second, is far behind with only 20.04% votes, translating to about 56.07 lakh votes. Both the Congress and the NCP are at third and fourth positions with 13.75% and 13.10% of the votes respectively.
Sena’s only solace
The only corporation where the BJP is lagging behind the Sena is in Mumbai, where it managed to win 27.92% votes in comparison with the Sena’s 28.83%. Data shows that apart from the Congress, which polled 16.54% votes, none of the other parties managed to reach double digits in terms of voting percentage.
