New Delhi: The Congress and its allies gave a strong performance in assembly polls in major states such as Gujarat, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh during the past two years, but they were unable to sustain the momentum and capitalise on people's disaffection towards the BJP for a good showing in the general election.
On Thursday, the BJP and its allies won comprehensively in each of the aforementioned states. In fact, it was a clean sweep in Gujarat and Rajasthan.
Moreover, in Madhya Pradesh, the BJP won 28 out of 29 seats; in Karnataka, it won 25 out of 28 seats, and in Chhattisgarh, the party won 9 out of 11 seats.
During 2018 assembly elections of Karnataka, the Congress and the JD(S) combine were able to win 78 and 37 seats, respectively, while the BJP got 104 seats.
The Congress and JD(S) entered into a coalition and were able to form government in the state with the latter's leader H D Kumaraswamy as the chief minister.
The relations between both the alliance partners have been fraught since then and its affect could be observed on the Lok Sabha election results of 2019.
For example, during assembly elections in 2018 in Karnataka, the alliance partners gave strong performance in regions of Hyderabad-Karnataka?, Greater Bengaluru and Old Mysuru.
In Hyderabad-Karnataka region, the Congress-JD(S) combination won 25 assembly seats out of total 40 in last year's assembly elections.
However, in 2019 general elections, all five Lok Sabha constituencies of this region including Kalaburagi that is considered a safe seat for Congress were won by BJP.
In 30 seats of Greater Bengaluru region, the Congress, JD(S) and BJP were able to score 15, 4 and 11 seats, respectively.
In 2019 general elections, while Bengaluru (Rural) was won by the Congress, the other three seats of the Greater Bengaluru region were won by the BJP.
In 55 seats of Old Mysuru region, the BJP was able to win last year on just nine assembly constituencies. One seat of this region was won by an independent, while the remaining 45 seats went to Congress and JD(S).
On Thursday, senior JD(S) leader and former prime minister H D Deve Gowda lost the Lok Sabha election to BJP's G S Basavaraj in Tumakuru constituency of Old Mysuru region.
Apart from two seats one each went to an independent candidate and a JD(S) candidate all other seats went to BJP in Old Mysuru region.
During Gujarat assembly elections in 2017, the Congress and its allies gave a spirited fight and won 79 seats while BJP's tally was restricted to 99 seats out of the total 180.
In 2012 Gujarat assembly elections, when Narendra Modi was the CM, the BJP had won 115 seats.
During the 2017 elections, in regions of rural areas of Saurashtra region in Gujarat, the BJP was able to win only 8 seats while the Congress won 23 seats.
The rural distress affected the seats in north Gujarat too where the Congress was able to win 17 seats while BJP got 14 of them.
However, the 2017 assembly election results were unable to affect the BJP in 2019 as it was able to win all 26 Lok Sabha seats of Gujarat, repeating its performance of 2014 general elections.
During 2018 Rajasthan assembly elections, the Congress won 100 seats in a 200-seat legislative assembly, while the BJP scored 73.
There were many regions in Rajasthan where the Congress had performed exceedingly well. For example, in the Hadoti region, the party won 35 seats out of 50, while in Shekhawati region, it was able to win 15 out of the total 20 seats.
However, during the 2019 general election, none of the advantage of last year's assembly victory could be carried forward by the Congress and it was not able to win even one seat in the state.
Congress's performance in Chhattisgarh assembly results last year was excellent, when it got 68 out of 90 seats. On the other hand, the BJP was able to win just 15 seats.
However, a year later, in Lok Sabha elections, the Congress was able to win only Korba and Bastar, and lost remaining nine seats to the BJP.
Similarly, the Congress was unable to take advantage of last year's assembly election results of Madhya Pradesh, when it won 114 seats out of the total 230 seats. On Thursday, the party was able to win just one Lok Sabha seat Chhindwara which is Chief Minister Kamal Nath's bastion.
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