Gujarat Election Results: BJP Matches Left's Bengal Record Of Seven Straight Assembly Wins

Gujarat Election Results 2022: The CPI(M), which ruled West Bengal for 34 years from 1977 to 2011, had won seven straight elections.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi flashes victory sign during the celebrations of the party's victory in the Gujarat Assembly elections

Source : PTI

With Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) winning a record 156 seats in Gujarat, it became the only party other than the Communist Party of India (Marxist) to have won seven straight Assembly elections. The CPI(M), which ruled West Bengal for 34 years from 1977 to 2011, had also won seven straight elections.

Riding on the charisma of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who addressed 31 election rallies in his home state, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) steamrolled the opposition Congress, including an aggressive Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), by winning 156 of the 182 seats in Gujarat with a vote share of nearly 53 per cent, which is the highest for any party in the western state.

Previously, the BJP's best tally came in 2002, where it bagged 127 seats. The elections, conducted in the aftermath of the post-Godhra riots, saw Narendra Modi returning as the chief minister. 

Till now, Congress' tally of 149 in the 1985 Assembly election under the leadership of Madhavsinh Solanki held the record for most number of seats won by a party in the state.

Moreover, the 2022 election saw a record difference of vote share between the party forming the government and the main opposition party. The vote share difference between BJP and Congress is a record 25 per cent.

BJP has received 53 per cent of the votes polled while Congress has garnered 27 per cent votes. The vote share difference between the BJP and the Congress in 2007 was 11 per cent.

"People of Gujarat have reposed their faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP leadership once again. If the masses of Gujarat have elected the BJP then we will have live up to the expectations of the people," said Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, who secured a masive win from Ghatlodia in Ahmedabad.

The BJP has already announced that Patel would lead the next government in the state.

While the Congress was not expected to replicate its impressive performance of the last assembly elections in 2017, where it won 77 seats, the trends showed the party's electoral prospects in the state had been hurt by the AAP.

The outcome of Gujarat election comes as a major boost for PM Narendra Modi's popularity for the national elections slated to be held in 2024. It will also be a springboard for BJP's preparations for elections to Karnataka, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, and Madhya Pradesh next year.