The Congress improved its vote share in Scheduled Caste-reserved seats to 20.8% in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from 16.7% in 2019
SANJAY KUMAR
JYOTI MISHRA
VIBHA ATTRI
DATA POINT
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lost the election in the Faizabad Lok Sabha constituency, which is home to the Ram Mandir. There was a lot of speculation that the party would make gains in this seat because this was the first election after the construction of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. However, the verdict came as a surprise. Not only did the BJP lose, but the Dalit candidate from the Samajwadi Party (SP), Awadhesh Prasad, defeated the Thakur candidate from the BJP, Lallu Singh, in this non-reserved seat. In Indian electoral history, this was one of the few instances of a Dalit candidate winning from an unreserved Lok Sabha seat. This draws attention to how Dalits voted in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Gains for Congress
A look at the performance of political parties in parliamentary constituencies reserved for the Scheduled Castes (SCs) — 84 in total — shows that the Congress won 20 such seats and the Congress and its allies won 33. The Congress won only six SC-reserved seats in 2019, so its performance in 2024 in SC-reserved seats was a considerable improvement for the party. The Congress performed better not only in terms of seats but also in terms of vote share: it secured 20.8% of the vote share in the 2024 elections compared to 16.7% in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
On the other hand, the BJP suffered a setback in SC-reserved seats. It won only 29 seats in 2024 compared to 46 in 2019. Overall, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) managed to win 39 SC-reserved seats in 2024, which is 15 seats fewer than in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections (Table 1).
The electoral fate of parties
In many States, the choices of Dalit voters may have changed the electoral fate of political parties. More specifically, they may have been instrumental to an extent in shaping the electoral outcome of the NDA and INDIA blocs in many States. While Dalits did not vote in a similar manner in all States, data suggest that wherever Dalit voters supported the NDA or the INDIA bloc, that alliance got more seats. For instance, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have a similar nature of political contest. The INDIA bloc performed well in Uttar Pradesh, but not to the same extent in Bihar. The findings of the National Election Study (NES) 2024 show that Dalit voters backed the INDIA bloc candidates in Uttar Pradesh, but not to the same extent in Bihar.
The findings of the NES reveal the same story in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. Dalits preferred voting for candidates of the INDIA bloc in higher numbers compared to those of the NDA in Maharashtra, but not in Madhya Pradesh.
In Rajasthan, 46% of the Dalits voted for the Congress, while only 37% voted for the BJP candidates (Table 2). In this State, the BJP had won all 25 seats in both the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections; it lost 10 Lok Sabha seats in 2024.
In Gujarat, 57% of Dalit voters voted for the BJP and only 43% voted for the Congress. The BJP won 25 of the total 26 Lok Sabha seats.
Dalit voters favoured the Congress in Haryana; Congress won five of the 10 seats. During the 2019 elections, the BJP had won all the 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana.
The BJP won 20 of the 21 Lok Sabha seats and 78 of the 147 Assembly seats in Odisha. Among the Dalit voters, 46% voted for the BJP, 40% voted for the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), and 15% voted for the Congress/INDIA bloc in this State.
In neighbouring West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress maintained its dominance winning 29 out of 42 Lok Sabha seats; here, however, 45% of Dalits voted for the BJP, while a smaller share (41%) voted for the Trinamool, which managed to mobilise voters from various other social communities.
In the south
In Andhra Pradesh, the Dalit vote was more or less equally divided between the Telugu Desam Party and its allies, and the YSR Congress Party.
In Telangana, 46% of Dalits voted for the Congress/INDIA bloc, 23% for the BJP/NDA, and 31% for the Bhartiya Rashtra Samiti (BRS).
The good performance of the Congress in Karnataka is largely credited to the shift of the Dalit voters to the Congress (66% voted for the party).
The BJP’s good performance in Assam is credited to the continued support of Dalits for the party. The NES 2024 data indicate that 70% of the Dalits voted for the BJP/NDA in Assam while only 12% voted for the Congress/INDIA bloc.
The data show the significance of the Dalit votes for the victory/good performance of political parties in various States, though they do not indicate that this may be the only reason for the party’s victory in these States.
Sanjay Kumar is Professor and Co-director Lokniti-CSDS, Jyoti Mishra is a researcher at Lokniti-CSDS, and Vibha Attri is a researcher at Lokniti-CSDS
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