Modi win stops short of breaking record

 Narendra Modi came second in this election from only one perspective! The BJP prime ministerial candidate, who won the Vadodara seat by a margin of 5,70,128 lakh votes, could not cross Marxist MP Anil Basu’s record margin of 5,92,502 votes from Arambagh constituency set in 2004.

However, the 2014 Lok Sabha elections saw a new record as around 330 MPs, mostly from the BJP, won the polls with a margin of over 1 lakh votes. On the other hand, the BJP candidate in Ladakh secured victory with a mere 36-vote margin.

Modi romped home in Vadodara with ease, trumping Congress' Madhusudhan Mistry. The BJP strongman also won Varanasi impressively by a margin of more than 3.5 lakh votes.

This election also saw at least two BJP candidates getting more than 5 lakh votes, something that has happened only twice in the past 63 years of election history. Apart from Basu’s 5.92 lakh margin, LJP chief Ramvilas Paswan, in 1989, scripted a victory with a margin of 5.04 lakh votes. Former prime minister P V Narasimha Rao had also set a record of sorts by winning a bypoll from Nandyal constituency in Andhra Pradesh in 1991 by a margin of 5,80,297 lakh votes against rival Bangaru Laxman of the BJP.

At one time, Ghaziabad winner and former Army chief Gen V K Singh seemed to cross Modi’s record but had to finally settle for 5.67 lakh margin, securing just 2,868 votes less than Modi. A analysis of the EC data showed that 332 MPs won with a margin of over 1 lakh votes and BJP topping the list with 198.

In Gujarat, except for two, all the 24 other BJP winners had a margin of over 1 lakh, including L K Advani who won with over 4.83 lakh votes’ difference. Even the two MPs who could not cross 1 lakh mark had over 63,000 vote margin.