Tracing BJP’s increasing dominance in Jammu since 1987 Assembly polls | In Charts

Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses an election rally in support of BJP candidates at Shere-e-Kashmir Cricket Stadium in Srinagar onThursday, Sept. 19, 2024.
| Photo Credit: PTI

The results for the assembly elections in the Union Territory were declared on Tuesday, October 8, and the National Conference – Congress alliance bagged 48 of the 90 seats, forming a majority. But in the 43 seats of the Jammu division, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 29 of them, thereby maintaining its stronghold in the region.

Out of the 29 seats BJP won in Jammu, 14 of them were won with a margin of victory greater than 20% of the respective constituency’s vote share, as showcased in the map below, which depicts the winning party by constituency, and margin of victory.

As shown in the map below, in the 2014 elections, the 37 constituencies in the Jammu division, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 25 of them, and that too with a relatively higher margin of victory. This was a significant improvement from the 2008 elections, when BJP won just 11 seats, marking its journey in making the division one of its strongholds.

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BJP’s rise in Jammu

In the 1987 Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections, in what would be BJP’s early years, the party won just 2 of the 27 seats it contested in Jammu. BJP candidates did finish as runner-ups in 6 constituencies, but they had lost with a relatively high margin of victory.

The graphic below shows how the party performed in the 1987, 1996, 2002, 2008, 2014, and 2024 election. Except 2002, when BJP won just a single seat, the party’s performance did slowly improve. The darker orange-shaded dots indicate the seats where BJP won, and the lighter orange-shaded dots indicate the seats where BJP candidates came in second. Again, barring the 2002 elections, more and more orange dots in the graphic below show how the party’s influence and performance has increased in Jammu.

In 2008, the party won 11 seats in Jammu, and also lost in Vijaypur, Gandhinagar, Samba, Udhampur, and Chhamb through faint margins. In 2014, however, it can be seen that BJP won 25 seats, with 11 of them having margins of victory over 20%. And now, in 2024, out of the 14 seats BJP lost, it came in second in 9, with 4 of them – Rajouri, Bani, Doda, and Thannamandi, lost in margins less than 7% of the constituencies’ vote share.

Seats in Jammu were less tightly-contested in 2014 and 2024

Since 1987 it can be seen in the graphic below that the Congress’s and National Conference’s influence over the region has reduced, with the elections being tightly contested in 2002 and 2008, as the median margin of victory for the seats was just around 7%. In 2014, the BJP’s median margin of victory was around 18%, which points to a relatively easy victory of the party in that constituency.

In the 1987, JKNC and Congress won over 80% of the seats they contested, with BJP winning only around 8%. This dynamic had completely changed in 2014 where BJP won two-thirds of the seats they contested for where as Congress and JKNC won just 13.5% and around 8% of the seats they contested. In 2024, BJP continued winning over two-thirds of the seats it contested in the division, whereas JKNC won 7 out of the 17 seats it fielded candidates for Jammu, with Congress winning just 1 out the 29 seats it contested.