The Congress won the 1985 Gujarat elections with 149 seats and a vote share of 55.55 percent. This remains a record in the state, and even the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has been in power for almost three decades, has not been able to match it, as per the Election Commission data analyzed by News18. Congress is the only party which has won 140 or more seats thrice in the state. It won the 1980 election with 141 seats and the 1972 election with 140 seats.
It is also important to note that the 1985 elections were the last time when Congress managed to come to power in the state and was the single largest party. The data shows that in the next election in 1990, the seats won by the grand old party fell to its lowest on record, with a vote share of around 31 per cent.
For the BJP, which first came to power in the state in 1995 with 121 seats, in 2002 it won 127 seats with a vote share of 49.85 per cent.
The vote share of the Congress has been increasing in every assembly election in the state since 1990. From about 31 percent that year, the party’s share had risen to about 43 percent in 2017.
Barring the 2002 elections, the number of seats won by the Congress has also steadily increased between 1990 and 2017, the data show.
Moreover, even though the Congress has been out of power in the state for almost three decades, it remains the second largest party whose vote share has never been below 30 per cent. The party’s vote share has been above 35 per cent in every election since 1998.
This time the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is also in the fray. AAP has fielded its candidates on all 182 seats. The results of the election will be declared on 8 December.
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