On 3rd December, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the Assembly Elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh by a wide margin. Congress, which won all 3 states when elections were held in 2018, lost in all 3 states.
However, some individuals cook up theories to show the results that these assembly elections will favour Congress in the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections. One such individual is India Today’s anchor Rajdeep Sardesai, who came up with a bizarre interpretation of the results to spin the narrative in Congress’s favour.
On 5th December, Sardesai published an “analytic” post on the numbers from the Assembly Elections and compared it to the General Election results from 2019 so that Congress came out in a better position.
According to him, in 2019, the BJP won all 25 Lok Sabha seats in Rajasthan, and Congress failed to win a single seat. Based on the 2023 Assembly Election results, the BJP will win 14 seats, and Congress will win 11 in 2024.
Similarly, he claimed that BJP won 28 seats in Lok Sabha in Madhya Pradesh 2019 and Congress won only one. Based on the 2023 Vidhan Sabha results, the BJP would win 24, and the Congress would win 5 in the upcoming Lok Sabha Elections.
In Chhattisgarh, he asserted that BJP won 9 seats and Congress won 2 seats in 2019. Thus, the BJP would win eight, and Congress would win three seats in Lok Sabha 2024.
In Telangana, the BJP had won 4, and the Congress won 3 in 2019, which would tune into nine seats for Congress and 0 for the BJP.
The flawed narrative
Sardesai attempted to spin the Congress loss in the assembly elections as a positive outcome for the party in the upcoming General Elections. Selectively using the 2023 Assembly Election results compared to the 2019 General Election results would not work, as Sardesai claimed.
Let’s talk numbers. According to the data provided by the Election Commission of India (ECI), in the 2013 Madhya Pradesh Assembly Elections, the BJP won 143 seats, and the Congress won 71 seats. In the 2018 MP Assembly Elections, BJP won 109 seats, and Congress won 114 seats. In the 2023 Assembly Elections in MP, BJP won 163 seats, and Congress won 66 seats. Now, coming to Lok Sabha Elections in 2014, BJP won 27 seats, and Congress won 2 seats. In the 2019 General Elections, BJP won 28 seats, and Congress won 1 seat.
In the 2013 Chhattisgarh Assembly Elections, BJP won 50 seats, and Congress won 38 seats. In the 2018 Chhattisgarh Assembly Elections, BJP won 15 seats, and Congress won 68. In the 2023 Assembly Elections in Chhattisgarh, BJP won 54 seats, and Congress won 35. Now, coming to Lok Sabha Elections in 2014, BJP won 10 seats, and Congress won 1 seat. In 2019, BJP won 9 seats and Congress won 2 seats.
In the 2013 Rajasthan Assembly Elections, BJP won 163 seats, and Congress won 21 seats. In the 2018 Assembly Elections in Rajasthan, BJP won 73 seats, and Congress won 100 seats. In 2023, the BJP won 115 seats, and Congress won 69 seats. In the Lok Sabha Elections 2014, BJP won 25 seats, and Congress won zero seats. In 2019, the BJP won 25 seats, and the Congress won zero seats.
If Sardesai’s logic is to be considered, Congress should have won at least 14 seats in Rajasthan in 2019, 20+ seats in MP, and 8 seats in Chhattisgarh, but in reality the numbers were 0,1, and 2 respectively. But in reality, Congress nosedived in the Lok Sabha 2019 elections.
Based on the numbers, it is clear that the voting dynamics are entirely different regarding Lok Sabha and Assembly Elections. Voters chose the national issues during the Lok Sabha elections and favoured BJP in all three states in the last two Lok Sabha elections, irrespective of the voting patterns in the assembly elections.
Sardesai cherry-picked the data and claimed there could be a way to defeat PM Modi’s influence on the Lok Sabha Elections. He misinterpreted and misrepresented the prevailing political sentiment. His analysis hinged on the assumption that the 2023 Assembly would translate into the Lok Sabha outcomes in 2024, ignoring the unique dynamics of state and national elections.