Dehradun:
The BJP, which retained all the five Lok Sabha seats in Uttarakhand with huge victory margins, also got more than 60 per cent of the vote share this time, the highest by any party in the history of the hill state.
The BJP had captured 55.30 per cent of the total votes cast in the state in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls but this time got 61.0 per cent votes, increasing its vote share by 5.70 percentage points.
The increase in the BJP’s vote share despite a voter turnout of 61.50 per cent which was a little less than in 2014 when the state had recorded 61.67 per cent polling makes it all the more creditable for the party.
The Congress finished second behind the BJP getting a vote share of 31.4 per cent followed by the BSP which got 4.48 per cent of the total votes cast.
The big difference in the vote shares of the two parties, which were locked in straight contests in all the seats, shows the overwhelming support for the BJP.
BJP national secretary Tirath Singh Rawat, who won with a huge margin of 302669 votes from Pauri, got the highest vote share of 68.25 per cent among individual party candidates.
He was followed by Mala Rajya Laxmi Shah who polled 64.53 per cent of votes in Tehri, Ajay Tamta who got 64.03 per cent of votes in Almora, Ajay Bhatt who captured 61.35 per cent of the votes in Nainital and Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank who got 52.37 per cent of votes in Haridwar.
Congress candidates were far behind their BJP rivals in all seats in terms of vote share with Harish Rawat getting 34.41 per cent of the votes in Nainital, Pradeep Tamta 30.48 per cent in Almora, Ambrish Kumar 32.02 per cent in Haridwar, Pritam Singh 30.22 per cent in Tehri and Manish Khanduri 27.51 per cent in Pauri.
