Fewer winners got more than half the votes polled

The average winning margin in the Lok Sabha elections fell as compared to the 2019 elections, while fewer winners got more than half the votes polled in their constituencies.

An analysis by the Association for Democratic Reforms has calculated that while the winners of the 2019 polls had an average of 52.65 per cent of the votes polled, this time the average was 50.58 per cent.

Moreover, the winning average of 2024 is 33.44 per cent, which means the elected MPs are the choice of this percentage of the registered voters. This share is slightly lower than the 35.46 per cent of 2019.

While 51 per cent of the 2019 winners got more than half the votes polled, this time 49 per cent of the winners reached the halfway mark. In numbers, this translates to 279 and 263 respectively.

The greatest chunk of the winners who got less than 50 per cent of the votes polled came from the Samajwadi Party, followed by the AITC, DMK, Indian National Congress, and the BJP. This illustrates that while the BJP’s seats have fallen, its winning contenders still polled more than the winners from other parties.

As for re-elected winners (214), less than half of them polled more than 50 per cent of the vote share; with 92 of these having a margin of less than 10 per cent.

More than two in five (42 per cent) winners with criminal cases had vote shares of 50 per cent and above. This was less than the 59 per cent winners with clean backgrounds who got more than half the votes cast in their constituencies.

Monied candidates did better than others in mopping up half the votes. The first stood at 52 per cent; the second at 44 per cent.

NOTA’s popularity continues to fall. In 2019, it had 1.06 per cent of the votes polled, in 2024 just 0.99 per cent. A year after it was introduced in 2013, it had its highest vote share in 1.12 per cent.