BJP's historic pursuit: Targeting 370 seats in 2024 LS polls challenge

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is chasing history in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls by targeting 370 seats.

Since 1991, India’s two major political parties, the BJP and Congress, have cumulatively surpassed the 350-seat mark and a 55 per cent vote share only twice, and barely achieving it in 1991 and 2019.

In 1991, the Congress recovered some of the ground it had lost, which was attributed to the sympathy the party garnered when former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated during the Lok Sabha election campaign. 

In 2019, the BJP became the first party since 1984 to cross the 300 mark. While the Congress vote share remained almost identical to what it had secured in 2014, the BJP’s vote share increased by six per cent, all of which came at the expense of parties with regional footprints, including, for example, the Left parties in West Bengal.

For the past three decades, political parties with regional footprints accounted for 200 or more seats, and nearly half the votes polled in the Lok Sabha elections. It compelled the two mainstream parties to shape coalitions to help them form governments at the Centre. 

In 2024, the BJP could achieve its twin objectives of coming close to a 50 per cent vote share nationwide and 370 seats solely by encroaching into the electoral space traditionally dominated by regional parties. These regional parties have occupied large parts of the country, particularly in India’s eastern and southern states, following the decline of the Congress.