A historic election day

Reading Time: 2 mins

Today, on 17 Apr 2014, 121 constituencies are going for elections.This is the day on which the largest number of constituencies are voting. Last election, by votes, these constituencies polled over 9.4 crore votes. Given electoral growth and increased turnouts, it seems safe to say more than 10 crore votes (100 million) will be cast on the same day for the first time in our history.

Today, all 28 of Karnataka’s constituencies are voting. Most of Rajasthan’s (20 of 28) constituencies are voting too. The rest of the 121 constituencies are split across a 10 other states. In terms of number of states covered, this is a pretty large election as well – second only to last week’s 10th April elections where 14 states were covered.

Last year, BJP won in 44 of the 121 constituencies polling today, followed by the Congress, which won in 37.

Karnataka was swept by BJP, whereas Congress had the clear majority in Rajasthan. The table below shows the results for these 121 constituencies by State and Party. The cells coloured in green indicate the party that won the largest number of seats in that constituency.

The closest of these elections last year were Davangene, Karnataka where Siddeswara of BJP won by just 2,024 votes (0.2% margin) against S S Mallikarjuna of Congress; and Buxar, Bihar, where Jagada Nand Singh of RJD won against Lal Muni Choubey of BJP by 2,238 votes (0.4%).

On the other hand, at Baramati, Maharashtra, Supriya Sule of NCP easily won against Kanta Jaysing Nalawade of BJP with over 3.4 lakh votes – a 46% margin of victory. At Madha, Maharashtra, Sharad Pawar of NCP won against Subhash Deshmukh of BJP with over 3 lakh votes – a 34% margin.

Several other prominent figures such as Devegowda, Jaswant singh, Madhavrao Scindia, Shatrughan Sinha, Yashwant Sinha, etc contested and won elections in these constituencies.

Whatever be the result, please do go out and vote on this historic day when 10 crore citizens exercise their franchise.