Assembly elections: SP’s 32% vote share its highest ever, but trumped by BJP’s 41.6%

NEW DELHI: BJP held on to or somewhat improved upon its 2017 vote share in four of the five states — Uttarakhand being the exception — while Congress saw sharp declines in its shares everywhere except the hill state.
Among the major regional players, SP improved its vote share in UP by more than 10 percentage points while the BSP dropped nearly as much in the state.AAP nearly doubled its share in Punjab, enabling it to sweep the state.
In UP, BJP gained nearly two percentage points, from 39.7% in 2017 to 41.6% this time, which meant that even the jump from 21.8% to 32% in SP’s vote share was not enough to bridge the huge gap. BSP fell from 22.2% to 12.7% and Congress from 6.3% to a mere 2.4%, below even RLD’s 3% share.
In Punjab, AAP went from 23.7% in 2017 to 42%, the highest it’s got in the state, while Congress fell from 38.5% to 23% and Akali Dal from 25.2% to 18.4%.
In Uttarakhand, Congress improved from 33.5% to 37.9%, but was still well short of BJP’s 44.3%, which represented a decline from 46.5% in 2017.
In Goa, BJP marginally raised its share from 32.5% to 33.3%, but with Congress declining sharply from 28.4% to 23.5%, that proved just about enough.
In Manipur, BJP slightly hiked its share from 36.3% to 37.7% while Congress plunged from 35.1% to 16.6%, below even NPP’s 17.1%.