Viral posts claiming that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), won 165 seats in the recently concluded Lok Sabha election with a victory margin fewer than 2,000 votes, are false.
BOOM found that the claims made in the viral message are false. The same post was viral in 2022 after the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections which BOOM had debunked back then.
The BJP on its own won 33 seats in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh, and including its allies in the NDA (National Democratic Alliance), the coalition got 36 out of 80 seats in the state. The I.N.D.I.A alliance including the Samajwadi Party and Congress party got 43 seats in the state.
The viral post reads, "The situation could have been much worse than it panned out for the BJP. BJP won 7 seats with difference of 200 votes. BJP won 23 seats with difference of 500 votes. BJP won 49 seats with difference of 1000 votes. BJP won 86 seats with difference of 2000 votes. That's a total of 165 seats with a difference of 2000 or fewer votes. The power could do easily have gone to the Indi Alliance. Scary"
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BOOM also received the same message on our WhatsApp helpline number (+917700906588).
FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the claims made in the viral message are false. BOOM had debunked the same message back in 2022 when it was being shared with false claims after the Uttar Pradesh assembly election.
BOOM had found that the viral message was false as the the victory margins were not supported by official data from the Election Commission of India for the 2022 UP assembly election.
There were only 29 seats where the margin of victory was less than 2,000 votes, with five parties including the BJP having victories within this margin. The AIMIM had contested on only 97 seats in UP, and could not have played spoilsport in 165 seats, as the message had claimed.
Following is a breakup of these 29 seats.
1. Margin of fewer than 200 votes
There are no seats with a margin of less than 200 votes. The claim states that there are seven.
2. Margin of fewer than 500 votes There are 11 seats with a margin of more than 200 votes and less than 500 votes.
The BJP's Ashok Kumar Rana beat the SP's Naim Ul Hasan by 203 in Dhampur, which is the closest contest this election in UP. All the seats can be found below. The claim states that there are 23 seats in this category which is false
3. Margin of fewer than 1,000 votes
There are four seats with a margin of victory that is greater than 500, but is lesser than 1,000 votes. The claim puts 49 seats in this category.
4. Margin of fewer than 2,000 votes
There are 14 seats with a margin of victory that is greater than 1,000 votes, but lesser than 2,000 votes. It also consists of one of the victories won by the Indian National Congress, which won only two seats. The false claims in the viral message puts 86 seats in this bracket.
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AIMIM contested on 97 seats
Further, the claim states that the AIMIM has played spoilsport in these 165 seats. However, this could not have been the case, as the party only contested 97 seats and was not able to secure any seats. The AIMIM got 0.46% of the vote in Uttar Pradesh, which was even lesser than the 0.69% vote NOTA (None Of The Above).
2024 Lok Sabha data
BOOM analysed data published by the Election Commission of India on the 240 seats won by the BJP and found that the lowest victory margin was not below 1587 votes.
The three Lok Sabha seats where the BJP secured the narrowest victory margins below 2000 votes were - 1) Jajpur (Odisha) - 1587 votes, 2) Jaipur Rural (Rajasthan) - 1615, 3) Kanker (Chhattisgarh) - 1884.
This can be seen below:
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