BJP and NDA Lost In Nearly Half The Seats Where PM Narendra Modi Held Rallies

PM Modi had given speeches in 164 constituencies, among which the BJP lost 77 seats.

BJP or NDA candidates lost in nearly half the seats where PM Narendra Modi gave speeches as part of the campaign in the run up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The Quint analysed the 164 constituencies where PM Modi held public meetings and gave speeches, and found that the BJP/NDA candidate lost in 77 of the seats, and won on 87. This includes only the speeches delivered by PM Modi between 16 March (when the Model Code of Conduct came into force) till 30 May which was the last day of campaigning in the elections. The list of speeches were procured from PM Modi’s official website. This does not include roadshows.
 
The BJP won in 53 per cent of the seats where PM Modi gave speeches as part of his campaign, which is a significant decline from the 2019 Lok Sabha polls where the BJP-NDA had won in 85 per cent of the seats where the leader campaigned— having lost just 17 of 103 constituencies he had covered back then.  

Some Important Seats

Among notable losses in this list are Rajasthan’s Banswara, where PM Modi, during campaigning in April, made references to Muslims as ‘infiltrators’ and ‘those who have more children’. In the controversial speech, he had claimed that the Congress has promised to distribute wealth to the Muslim community. The BJP’s Banswara candidate Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya, lost to Rajkumar Roat of the Bharat Adivasi Party (BAP), by over 2 lakh votes. The voting in Banswara took place just four days after PM Modi’s speech. 

PM Modi had also held several public meetings and rallies in Punjab’s various constituencies—Hoshiarpur, Jalandar, Gurdaspur, Patiala—all of which the BJP lost.  
 
BJP was also severely shrunk in Uttar Pradesh—being reduced to just 33 of the 80 seats in the state, with Samajwadi Party becoming the single largest party in the state. PM Modi held several rallies across UP, with BJP losing some important seats including Ghazipur to Afzal Ansari, brother of Mukhtar Ansari.  
 
Besides UP, some of BJP and NDA’s biggest losses have been in Maharashtra, where PM Modi did close to 18 rallies and roadshows. In Maharashtra, the BJP lost in Solapur, Madha, Latur, Dharashiv—all seats where PM Modi had rallied.  
 
Among the important BJP wins where PM Modi had campaigned were several seats in Odisha, where the party won 20 of the 21 seats, and Madhya Pradesh, where it won all 29 seats.