 "Modi 3.0: Success rate of incumbents among the highest in decades")
The success rate of incumbents, who contested again in 2024, has been among the highest since the 1960s.
There were 324 incumbents who ran for office again in 2024. This was the lowest figure in 47 years, according to data from Ashoka University’s Trivedi Centre for Political Data and the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR). The latest data from ADR suggests around 214 have won, translating into a strike rate of 66.05 per cent (Chart 1).
This is the fourth highest since 1967. The elections with the highest incumbent success rate include 1967 (76.2 per cent), 1971 (70.8 per cent), and 2019 (67.1 per cent).
In 2019, the average assets of these 214 re-elected MPs, who were fielded by various parties, amounted to Rs 18.64 crore. By 2024, this amount had increased by 40 per cent, reaching Rs 26.14 crore.
In 2024, actress Hemamalini Dharmendra Deol from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who won from UP's Mathura, declared the highest assets worth Rs 278 crore among the re-elected MPs. Her assets saw an 11 per cent jump from Rs 250 crore in 2019. The candidate with the biggest rise for re-contesting MPs was BJP’s Poonamben Hematbhai Maadam from Gujarat's Jamnagar. Her assets jumped Rs 104 crore to Rs 147 crore as of 2024. The second was BJP’s Anurag Sharma of Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh, whose assets rose by Rs 87 crore to Rs 212 crore as of 2024. The Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party’s PV Midhun Reddy of Rajampet in Andhra Pradesh, was third with an Rs 80 crore increase in assets, taking his total assets in 2024 to Rs 146 crore.
India got its first coalition government in 1977 after the Congress lost elections. With 327 contesting incumbent candidates that year, 137 emerged as successful winners, the lowest in data going back to 1967. This year, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) secured a majority to form a coalition government with 293 seats, while the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc obtained 232 seats. From the BJP, 115 incumbents were re-elected, compared to 27 from the Indian National Congress (INC). The average assets of these re-elected BJP MPs increased by 42 per cent between 2019 and 2024, rising from Rs 18.6 crore to Rs 26.4 crore (Chart 2).
For INC winning incumbents, it rose from Rs 11 crore to Rs 15 crore. Among parties with more than one candidate, the Nationalist Congress Party – Sharadchandra Pawar had the highest average assets, amounting to Rs 87.5 crore.