words per minute
4
SPDhakad
00:00
Speed
Slice and dice the Gujarat results along rural-urban axes, reserved and unreserved seats or by regions, and the seat tallies would convey the impression that there are sharp differences in the way different parts or sections of the state voted. Yet, look at the vote shares and a somewhat surprising pattern emerges. Across all of these divides, the BJP's vote share is higher than that of the Congress.
This is true for every region, it is true for the rural/rurban/urban categories and whether it is SC or ST reserved seats or unreserved seats. Of course, the gap between the vote shares of the two parties would differ in each of these cases, but in every one of them Congress is behind BJP.
Click here for complete coverage of Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh Assembly Elections results 2017
That is quite a surprise given the seat shares where, for instance, Congress has trounced the ruling party in the rural areas. Indeed, for the state as a whole BJP's vote share of 49.1% in these polls is a slight improvement over the 47.9% it achieved in 2012 though a huge comedown if one were to compare it with the 59.1% share it got in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.