BJP members celebrating the victory of the poll in state office of party at Vijayawada on June 4.
Having lost its hold in Andhra Pradesh, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has made a comeback in 2024. In fact, its vote share was below NOTA’s in the 2019 elections. This year, it climbed up notably.
In 2019 BJP had no Lok Sabha or Assembly seats which it won from 10 assembly and six Lok Sabha seats contested while this time BJP won eight Assembly and three Lok Sabha seats compared to zero in 2019. The results were almost similar to those of previous elections where Bharatiya Janata Party failed to win any parliamentary seat except one lost with a small margin.
The increase in BJP vote share is attribut to massive win for NDA (National Democratic Alliance) in Andhra Pradesh. Second reason factor is BJP’s push into southern India. The number of Telangana parliamentarians more than doubled to eight – an impressive achievement for the saffron party.
As a matter of fact, even as far as Lok Sabha election results are concerned, it could be said that BJP is beginning to make its mark on Andhra Pradesh. Among them were Daggubati Purandeswari who defeated his rivals and became MP for Rajahmundry. Its vote share stood at 11.28% during that election.
The Bharatiya Janata Party lost its seats from 7.22% of votes cast during general elections held five years ago as opposed to their marginal percentage point which was less than one percent last year during general polls. It had bee reduced by 2.29% in the assembly constituencies from 4.13% in 2014 to 0.84 % in2019 when a two-horse race had taken place between TDP (Telugu Desam Party) and YSR Congress Party.
Reaching even lower than NOTA, which had a 1.5% vote share in parliamentary constituencies, the BJP was completely decimated.
But the party’s state president Kanna Lakshminarayana lost his seat in Narsaraopet constituency. In 2019, when BJP failed to win even one seat either at Assembly or Lok Sabha level it meant that saffron party won two Lok Sabha and four MLA seats in association with TDP (Telugu Desam Party) during the year of 2014.
Nowadays BJP has been able to increase its percentage from 11.28% in Lok Sabha elections to 2.83% taking place inside State Assemblies.
In Rajahmundry, Anakapalle, and Narsapuram Lok Sabha constituencies where the Bharatiya Janata Party managed to beat its opponents by more than 22%. The victory margin for Vara Prasad Varma of YSRCP candidate who received 44.67% votes against M.Gurumurthy (YSRCP) with 45.73%, which is less than NOTA (1.17%) for Tirupati LS seat stands at only 1.06%.
Although he polled close to half of total votes-43.67%-former Chief Minister of united Andhra Pradesh Kiran Kumar Reddy ended up losing Rajampet LS battle as opposed to his YS Jagan Mohan Reddy rival who polled at least a majority of all votes –48.38 %.
Araku LS seat was one that BJP had high hopes on after doing groundwork in tribal pockets. YSRCP got 40.96 % while BJP secured 36.62 %. CPI(M) too had accounted for 10.57 per cent votes through its frontal organizations also working among these people living in agency areas .
