2019 Lok Sabha Elections Results: Here's the 2014 seat benchmark the BJP will be looking to beat in 2019

Five years ago, in a landslide victory the BJP-led NDA in the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections not only went far ahead of the half-way mark but also registered an electoral triumph whose scale even they had perhaps not anticipated. As the results for all 543 Lok Sabha seats were announced, the NDA won a whopping 336 seats. The BJP crossed the 272-mark comfortably on its own, winning 282 seats. Meanwhile, the Indian National Congress which had led two consecutive UPA governments under Dr Manmohan Singh's Prime Ministership managed to secure only 44 seats.

With the day of the 2019 Lok Sabha election results finally arriving, the BJP not only expects to cross its own lofty benchmark but also intends to make inroads into regions that had remained unaffected by the Modi wave of 2014.

THE POTENTIAL NEW FRONTIERS:

First in the list, in West Bengal, where the Saffron party had won only two seats against Trinamool's 34, it campaigned fiercely this year. In neighbouring Odisha, where the party won only one seat, PM Modi has campaigned with vigour. The same also applies to a number of other states, including in the south of India where the BJP has historically had a small footprint. 

In 2014, it was the first time in the history of independent India that a non-Congress party won a majority on its own. The mandate secured by the NDA was also the biggest victory since the 1984 election that Rajiv Gandhi won with 414 Lok Sabha seats.

The party's Prime Ministerial-candidate Narendra Modi, by then the longest-serving Chief Minister of Gujarat, won his debut Lok Sabha elections comfortably both from Vadodara in Gujarat and from Uttar Pradesh's Varanasi, choosing to represent the latter.

THE UTTAR PRADESH ROUTE TO NEW DELHI:

Perhaps the most striking (sub)result of the BJP's victory came from Uttar Pradesh where the party delivered a stupendous performance by winning 71 out of 80 seats. Two seats were won by BJP ally Apna Dal. To put things into perspective, the party that had won only 10 seats in the state in 2009. On the other hand, Mayawati whose BSP once ruled the state failed to even open its account. The Samajwadi Party won five seats, all by members of the Mulayam Singh Yadav family. Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi were the only two Congress candidates to win in Uttar Pradesh from Amethi and Rae Bareli respectively.

THE 'CLEAN-SWEEPS'

The BJP won all 26 seats in Gujarat, where the state BJP had launched "Mission 26". In Chhattisgarh, the party won 10 out of 11 seats, in Madhya Pradesh it won 27 out of 29, (a gain of 11). It clean-swept the national capital of Delhi (7 out of 7), as well as Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. The party also registered a thumping victory in Maharashtra, along with Shiv Sena (41 out of 48 seats), Bihar (28 of 40, a gain of 16), Jharkhand (12 of 14), Haryana (7 out of 10) and Goa (2 of 2).

READ: 2019 Lok Sabha Election Results | 25 Biggest Battles LIVE Updates: Amethi, Varanasi, Begusarai, East Delhi, Wayanad, South Mumbai And More

One state that was a shock outcome for the Congress was Maharashtra, where the party went from 17 MPs in 2009 to two MPs in 2014 - Ashok Chavan and Rahul aide Rajeev Satav. Among the big defeats were Milind Deora, Priya Dutt, Gurudas Kamath, Eknath Gaikwad, Sushilkumar Shinde and others. In Jammu and Kashmir, the ruling NC-Congress coalition faced a complete whitewash, with even Farooq Abdullah and Ghulam Nabi Azad losing. The six seats were shared 3-3 by main opposition party PDP and the BJP who would later become allies in forming the state government. The national election 2014 was conducted in nine phases with expenditure of about Rs. 37.5 crore. Narendra Modi was declared the Prime Minister of India.

Here are the seats of all the parties:

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) - 282

Indian National Congress (INC) 44

All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) 37

All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) 34

Biju Janata Dal (BJD) 20

Shivsena (SS) 18

Telugu Desam (TDP) 16

Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) 11

Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI(M) 9

Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) 9

Lok Jan Shakti Party 6

Nationalist Congress Party 6

Samajwadi Party 5

Rashtriya Janata Dal 4

Aam Aadmi Party 4

Shiromani Akali Dal 4

Jammu & Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party 3

Independents 3

All India United Democratic Front 3

Rashtriya Lok Samta Party 3

Indian Union Muslim League 2

Janata Dal (United) 2

Apna Dal 2

Indian National Lok Dal 2

Janata Dal (Secular) 2

Jharkhand Mukti Morcha 2

Communist Party of India 1

Kerala Congress (M) 1

National Peoples Party 1

Revolutionary Socialist Party 1

All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen 1

All India N.R. Congress 1

Naga Peoples Front 1

Pattali Makkal Katchi 1

Sikkim Democratic Front 1

Swabhimani Paksha 1