Gautam Buddha Nagar, which elected Mahesh Sharma for a third time in 2024, is the sole seat where the winning margin of the BJP MP – sitting or a new face – has increased when compared to 2019, data from the Election Commission of India shows. Further, out of the 11 seats, all the constituencies have seen victory with the lowest-ever margin since 2014, except three – North West Delhi, South Delhi and Gautam Buddha Nagar.
It is important to note that Faridabad, Gurugram, Gautam Buddha Nagar and North East Delhi are the only four seats where the MPs have not been replaced over the years. Further, across these 11 seats in the NCR-region, the votes bagged by the BJP in 2024 was higher than 2019 only in four seats – Gautam Buddha Nagar, North East Delhi, North West Delhi and South Delhi, the analysis shows.
In Gurugram, the victory of Rao Inderjit Singh this time is the fourth in a row. However, in 2009 he was a Congress MP who switched to BJP little before 2014 Lok Sabha polls. In 2014, Inderjit won the polls with 6.44 lakh votes while the Congress slipped to the third position in the seat with just 1.33 lakh votes.
In 2019, the votes bagged by the Congress improved to 4.95 lakh while BJP’s increased to 8.81 lakh. In 2024, the votes bagged by the Congress touched 7.33 lakh as Raj Babbar gave a tough fight to Inderjit who won by a margin of 75,079 votes. In 2019, his winning margin was 3.86 lakh votes. All these years, against Inderjit, the Congress had fielded different candidates.
BJP has been winning Faridabad non-stop since 2014, with Krishan Pal Gurjar getting elected for a third time in a row. Although when compared to 2019, his victory margin has seen one of the steepest drops of 4.71 lakh.
Out of these 11 seats, BJP has won polls for a fourth time on the Ghaziabad Lok Sabha seat. In Ghaziabad, the BJP has been winning since 2009 – Rajnath Singh in 2009 and General Vijay Kumar Singh in 2014 and 2019. The seat came into existence in 2008 delimitation. In the 2014 and 2019 polls, General VK Singh won the seat by a margin of more than five lakh votes, higher than Rajnath’s.
This time, BJP had fielded Atul Garg, the sitting MLA, against Congress leader Dolly Sharma. Garg retained the seat and won with 8.54 lakh votes in hand, less than Gen Singh’s 2019 votes. The victory margin of Garg was 3.36 lakh, less than Rajnath’s margin from 2009 on the seat. The Congress had fielded Dolly Sharma both the times. From third position and 1.11 lakh votes in 2019, her performance in 2024 improved to 5.17 lakh votes, after the grand old party’s alliance with the Samajwadi Party at the seat.
In Gautam Buddha Nagar, also formed in 2009, BJP’s Sharma has been elected twice – in 2014 and 2019. Before that, in 2009, BSP’s Surendra Singh Nagar was elected from the seat. This time again, Sharma has won the polls. He is among the few BJP MPs from the party who have seen better winning margins and higher total votes bagged than 2019.
Across these four cities, the votes bagged by the BJP in 2019 were 35.70 lakh. They dropped to 33.08 lakh this time.
Situation in Delhi
In all the seven seats in Delhi, the BJP had been winning non-stop since 2014. Although, actor-turned-politician Manoj Tiwari is the sole leader that has been elected for the third time in 2024, on the remaining seats, the BJP replaced the sitting candidates.
Further, across all the 11 seats in NCR, Tiwari’s votes have seen the highest jump of 36,652 when compared to 2019. Gautam Buddha Nagar’s Sharma was next in line with 27,017 more votes in his kitty.
The BJP had been winning the New Delhi Lok Sabha seat since 2014. Two time sitting MP Meenakashi Lekhi was dropped in 2024 and replaced by Bansuri Swaraj, the daughter of senior BJP leader late Sushma Swaraj. When compared to Lekhi’s 2019 winning margin and votes bagged, Bansuri performed poorly. While Lekhi won the seat in 2019 with 5.04 lakh votes and a margin of 2.56 lakh votes, the first time MP got 4.53 lakh votes and a victory margin of 78,370. This is the sharpest drop in votes bagged by the BJP across Delhi seats.
The victory margin of the BJP has dropped across all the seven seats in Delhi. Chandni Chowk has seen the lowest drop, of 1.38 lakh votes, while West Delhi has seen the sharpest drop of 3.79 lakh votes.
In 2019, the votes bagged by the BJP across Delhi stood at 49.08 lakh that dropped to 48.60 lakh in 2024.
NOTA on Rise
Across the 11 seats, only three seats have seen a drop in NOTA votes – North West Delhi, New Delhi and West Delhi.
The New Delhi Lok Sabha seat has seen the highest drop in the NOTA votes across the 11 constituencies – from 6,601 in 2019 to 4,812 in 2024. In North West Delhi, NOTA votes came down from 10,210 to 8,984 while in the West, the drop was from 8,937 to 8,699 votes.
Gautam Buddha Nagar also had another feather in its cap – highest jump in NOTA votes across the 11 seats. The NOTA votes on the seat increased from 3,836 in 2014 to 8,371 in 2019 and 10,324 in 2024.
The Lok Sabha polls were held across India in seven phases between April 19 and June 1. The counting of the votes was done on June 4.
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