Chhattisgarh is one of the States where most contests are often clearly bipolar between the Congress and the BJP. The recent loss in the Assembly election had already set the stage in favour of the BJP. The BJP won 10 out of 11 seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha election in Chhattisgarh, with only one seat going to the Congress. The BJP in Chhattisgarh got a higher percentage of votes than they did in recent Assembly elections. In the 2023 assembly election, BJP got 47%, while this time, it got nearly 53%. The Congress’ vote share has more or less remained constant for the past few elections at around 42%. The additional vote received by the BJP compared to the Assembly vote share meant that the distance between the two parties further widened.
An interesting pattern that emerges from Chhattisgarh is that non-Congress/non-BJP candidates got support almost exclusively from men voters only — thus slightly fragmenting the male vote at the cost of the Congress. Women’s vote was more sharply divided between the Congress and the BJP. Thus, for both parties women voters were more crucial than the men voters. Following the formation of the State government, the BJP initiated its manifesto promise and introduced the Mahatari Vandan Yojana, a women-centric scheme that credits ₹1,000 to women’s bank accounts every month. The State government ensured that women get their payments before the elections. This move may have additionally helped the BJP in getting women’s votes.
The BJP was slightly stronger among urban voters (over 55% share) compared to rural voters almost 52%) and also among younger voters. But what helped the BJP most in achieving this success in the State was robust support across three important social groups — the upper castes (74%), OBCs (56%) and the Dalits (59%). In contrast, the Congress received more support among Adivasis (59%) but clearly, that was not enough to craft a victory across many constituencies. The only redeeming feature for the Congress was that it had greater support among the poor (48%) compared to the BJP (45%) which had the highest support among the middle class (67%).
Last time, though the Congress was in power at the State level, Chhattisgarh had stood firmly with the BJP and that tradition continued this time around too.
Akash Tawar is Lokniti-CSDS, State coordinator from Chhattisgarh
