How can any party win a clean majority in the Lok Sabha with a vote share of only 31%? The Congress dominated Parliament in the 1950s, but its vote share was only about 45%. While the Congress vote share dropped 10 percentage points to 19%, the support for the Congress, though diminished, wasn’t completely decimated. The average vote share of the winners was about 47%, while that of the runner-up was 32%. (Note that this discussion is simply restricted to the two national parties, without considering the regional parties with 212 seats in the Lok Sabha).

Source: Mint April 01, 2019 16:18 UTC