BJP-led NDA rules India's 49% population in 17 states
Highlights
- BJP's expansion had started with the landslide win in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls
- At the peak in 2018, NDA governed 21 states, covering 70% of the population & 76% territory
With the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) returning to power in four states -- Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is now ruling in 17 states and 1 Union Territory of the country which covers 44% of the territory and more than 49.5 per cent population.
The 17 states are Karnataka, Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Bihar, Sikkim, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura, UP, Uttarakhand, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. The lone UT is Puducherry.
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Before the BJP lost Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh to the Congress in 2018, the BJP directly or the NDA governed 21 states, covering 70 per cent of the population and 76 per cent territory. The BJP returned to power in Karnataka in 2019 and in Madhya Pradesh in March 2020 following a defection by Jyotiradiya Scindia.
NDA rules 17 states, 1 UT
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In Maharashtra, the party couldn’t retain power due to ally Shiv Sena’s decision to team up with the Congress and NCP after the results. In Jharkhand, the party was unseated in 2019.
Notably, the BJP's expansion had started with the landslide win in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The party then dethroned Congress from states where the grand old party was in power, barring Bihar where Nitish Kumar's JD(U) and RJD contested together in 2015, Delhi which went to AAP's kitty, West Bengal where Mamata Banerjee retained power with an overwhelming majority and southern states.
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