Karnataka results: Congress lost seats despite gaining vote share

The Karnataka Election results witnessed the Congress party garnering only 78 seats this time which is a decline compared to 122 seats in 2013. However, the vote shares of the various parties bring notice to the fact that Congress actually polled a higher vote share of 38% than it did in 2013 when it got 36.6%.

Congress ended up with almost two percentage points more than BJP in terms of vote share. However, BJP, a divided house five years back consolidating its vote by getting both former Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa and former rebel leader Sriramulu back into its fold.

Nevertheless, BJP also had its votes less scattered than the Congress, thus able to convert votes into seats much more effectively.

Even the JD(S), which won just 18.3% of votes, which is less than 20.2% in 2013 had a more efficient conversion of votes to seats than the Congress as the party confined to the southern Vokkaliga dominated parts of the state.

Meanwhile, Congress received more votes than the BJP in the northeastern part of the state, Hyderabad-Karnataka, and in the southern part - Old Mysore.

According to the data, Congress outscored the BJP in vote share in the rural and rurban seats but was surpassed in the urban ones. The biggest gap between the two parties was recorded in the 20 rurban seats with the Congress getting 38.7% against the BJP's 32.3% as both finished with seven of these seats.

In terms of reserved seats for SC candidates, the Congress got a higher vote share than the BJP but won fewer seats - 12. For ST, the BJP got a higher vote share but won only 6 seats compared to the Congress' 8.

Coming to the 120 Lingayat-dominated seats, the Congress got its vote share increased to 38.1% compared to 35.9% in 2013. On the other hand, the BJP's vote share of 40.6% in these seats outweighed Congress vote share.