The BJP has just won the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections. Or so it seems. The BJP retaining Madhya Pradesh and taking over Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan from the Congress in the recent assembly elections does not only entail total takeover of the Hindi heartland by the BJP but, most importantly, is also like securing 36 more Lok Sabha seats in the ensuing parliamentary election. While the Congress did manage to win Telangana, it does not affect the BJP as the southern state was never a BJP bastion. It is worth noting that the Bharat Rashtra Samithi was the ruling party in Telangana, and the Congress did not directly compete with the BJP in that state. Which means, Congress won one but lost two while the BJP retained one and won two. From a Lok Sabha perspective, the Congress gained 17 prospective MP seats in Telangana but suffered setbacks with a loss of 11 seats in Chhattisgarh and 29 in Madhya Pradesh. In contrast, the BJP retained its hold on 29 Lok Sabha seats in Madhya Pradesh and gained an additional 36 seats by wresting control from the Congress in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. For the Congress, it is like one step forward and two steps back. The win in Karnataka earlier in the year has been almost annulled for Congress, underlining the volatility of the political landscape. Of course, it does not mean that all the parliamentary seats in a state will go to the ruling party in that state during parliamentary elections but being in power plays a mighty big role in electoral politics.
