Which party won Gujarat election on moral basis ?

Gujarat election is a classic example of first-past-the-post voting method. Let us compare the vote share of BJP & Congress in Gujarat & Himachal Pradesh. BJP’s vote share in Gujarat was 49.1% and in Himachal Pradesh it was 48.8%. Congress’s vote share in Gujarat was 41.4% (roughly around 43.9% along with allies) and 41.7% in Himachal Pradesh. BJP won 44 seats in Himachal Pradesh (out of 68) and just 99 seats (out of 182) seats in Gujarat.

Normally BJP would have swept Gujarat election with around 6% lead in a bipolar election. In MP assembly election 1998, Congress won 172 seats with 40.59% seats and BJP won 119 seats with 39.28% votes. But this time was different. BJP was far more popular than Congress in its bastion of urban seats. BJP’s average winning margin in urban seats (33 seats) was about 47,400. In semi urban seats, BJP’s average victory margin was over 26,000. Congress’s victory margin was much lower than that of BJP so the extra votes didn’t result in big seats win for BJP.  

In Saurashtra, BJP won just 23 seats compared to 30 seats won by Congress. But BJP had marginally higher vote share (45.9% compared to 45.5%) than Congress. Similarly, in North Gujarat BJP won 14 seats with 45.1% vote share and Congress won 17 seats with 44.9% votes.  

Many media organization & Congress party is saying that Gujarat is a moral victory for Congress. I don’t agree with them because Congress had always maintained a healthy vote share in Gujarat. In 2012, Congress had a vote share of 38.39% and 38% in 2007 election. However, in this election, Congress performed better in cornering vote share of Gujarat Parivartan party & independents compared to 2012. Their percentage vote share increase was almost double than that of BJP. Also, Congress could get more seats per vote compared to last election and increased its tally significantly.

My take is simple. If a party can get a vote share of 49.1% votes after 22 years of anti-incumbency and secured majority for 6^th continuous time, then the party is a clear winner (morally & politically). Congress failed to stop BJP despite having a grand collation of activists from Patel, OBC and Dalit community. BJP could offset its loss of Patel votes from extra OBC, Dalit & Tribal votes. If Congress would have managed to hold on its traditional votes then today Gujarat would have a Congress CM.