The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) dropped 91 sitting Members of Parliament (MPs) out of 272 members that had contested in 2014, an analysis by BOOM showed.
The party dropped around 91 (33.45 %) out of 272 sitting MPs and gave tickets to new candidates on those seats.
Out of the 91 new candidates, 84 won and seven lost in the recently held 2019 Lok Sabha elections held last week.
Constituency Map
Three states constituted the most number of dropped BJP MPs - Uttar Pradesh (22), Madhya Pradesh (15), and Gujarat (10). These three states constituted around 51 % (47 out of 91) of dropped MPs.
Prominent MPs who did not contest include leaders like Sushma Swaraj from Vidhisha, Madhya Pradesh in 2014, and had announced she would not contest due to health reasons.
Udit Raj, Prominent Dalit politician who contested from New Delhi West in 2014 was denied a ticket and switched over to the Congress due to that.
Age Group of MPs dropped
In April 2019, Amit Shah had stated that the BJP had decided not to give Lok Sabha poll tickets to those above 75 years of age. (Click here)
Around 56 (60%) of MPs dropped were above 50 years of age, and only 4 MPs were less than 40 years old.
According to our analysis, around 26 MPs who were above the age group of 70 were denied tickets this election.
These include senior BJP veterans like LK Advani who had last time contested from Gandhinagar and Murli Manohar Joshi who had contested from Kanpur in 2014.
Modi Factor
While there does not seem to be any coherent strategy behind dropping nearly one-third of the sitting MPs, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's appeal seems to have overcome local factors.
BOOM spoke to Shivam Singh, former BJP data analyst, and political analyst who said that the changing the sitting MPs did not matter as the electorate voted on the Modi factor.
The BJP won a landslide victory in the recently held 2019 Lok Sabha election winning 303 seats on its own, up from 282 in 2014.
The party even managed to increase its vote share to 37% from 31% in the previous Lok Sabha election with the BJP led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) also increasing its vote share to 45% (353 seats) from 38% (336 seats).
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