Congress leaves behind BRS by 11% vote gap and BJP by 25% gap in Municipal polls

The ruling Congress (INC) has emerged not only as the largest party in terms of vote share, securing 39.80% of the total votes polled, but it also left behind the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) with a massive gap of 11%.

This gap is massive given that the difference between the BRS and the Congress in the Assembly polls in 2023 was just 2%. Congress improved its share in the Parliament elections taking 40.1% while the BRS’s share dropped to mere 16.7%. The BJP was the biggest gainer of the BRS loss.

In the Municipal polls, the results of which were declared on Friday (Feburary 13), Congress not only bagged the maximum seats but also the maximum share of votes. The only solace of the BRS is that it improved its vote share with the BJP now losing massively to the BRS.

Out of the total 37,81,232 votes polled, the Congress garnered 15,05,006 votes, translating into a 39.80% vote share. The BRS followed in second place with 10,87,347 votes with 28.76%, leaving a gap of over 4.17 lakh votes between the two leading contenders.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) finished a distant third, polling 5,92,823 votes, translating to just 15.68% of the total. Independents occupied the fourth position with 3,14,096 votes (8.31%), while AIMIM and AIFB rounded off the top six with 3.29% and 1.51% vote share respectively.

The party-wise vote share data also showed the highly polarised contest, with the top two parties together accounting for more than two-thirds of all votes cast.

Clear edge

The vote margins further emphasise the clear edge of the Congress over BRS, with the difference being 11.05% votes. The BRS enjoys a huge edge of 13.08% votes over the BJP, which was hoping to consolidate and replace the principal opposition party by the next Assembly elections.

Interestingly, the BJP, which garnered 34.9% votes in the Parliament elections in 2024, lost nearly 20% of votes, and that too in the urban areas where it was expected to do much better. The BRS that got just 16.7% votes in the Parliament elections has improved to 28.76%. However, it secured the additional votes from the BJP, while the Congress has improved massively with a 11% gap over the BRS reinforcing people’s continued faith since 2023.

In the 2023 assembly elections, Congress won 64 seats, securing 39.4% votes while the BRS polled 37.3% votes winning 39 seats. The BJP secured 13.9% votes in the assembly elections but improved by two-and-a-half times in the Lok Sabha polls.