Four thousand three hundred thirty seven.

This is a number that has deeply scarred the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). A seat-wise break-up of the margin of victory in Madhya Pradesh shows that if only 4,337 extra voters had cast their mandate for the BJP, Shivraj Singh Chouhan would have been able to form the government for the fourth time in the state.

According to the final Election Commission (EC) data, there was a photo-finish in 10 seats of MP, where the gap between the winning candidate and the runner up was less than 1,000 votes.

Madhya Pradesh Margin Calculator

The BJP is ruing the fact that out of these 10 seats that were decided by the slenderest of margins, the Congress party bagged seven seats. And the BJP picked up only three. The cold calculation staring the BJP in the face is this: If only 4,337 extra voters had voted for the BJP, the party would have won these seven seats. The BJP's tally would then have gone up from 108 to 115 seats and the Congress's tally would have slipped from 114 to 107 seats. Bagging 70 per cent of the seats that were decided by a wafer-thin margin suggests that lady luck was shining bright on Rahul Gandhi's party in this crucial battle in the Hindi heartland.

Of the seats won by margins less than 1,000, Gwalior South had the narrowest of all margins. Here, the Congress candidate Praveen Pathak beat BJP's Narayan Singh Kushwah by a mere 121 votes. On the Suwasra seat in the Mandsaur district of Malwa region, the gap between Congress and BJP was a slender 350 votes. In Jabalpur North, Biaora, Damoh, Rajnagar, Rajpur (ST) the Congress's lead over BJP was between 500 to 1,000 votes. When margins are so tight, it's just a matter of luck that decides which way the cookie finally crumbles.

Madhya Pradesh Margin Calculator

These slender margins need to be looked at in the context of the overall voting numbers in the state. A total of 3.77 crore voters cast their mandate on November 28. The BJP and Congress were locked in a dead heat when it came to voting percentages. The BJP picked up 41 per cent of the vote and the Congress bagged 40.9 per cent of the votes. The BJP, in fact, garnered 47,824 more votes than the Congress in the state. These slender margins need to be looked at in the context of the overall voting numbers in the state. A total of 3.77 crore voters cast their mandate on November 28. The BJP and Congress were locked in a dead heat when it came to voting percentages. The BJP picked up 41 per cent of the vote and the Congress bagged 40.9 per cent of the votes. The BJP, in fact, garnered 47,824 more votes than the Congress in the state.

It's not as if these 10 seats that were won or lost by a margin of less than 1,000 were the outliers. There were 18 seats where the margin of victory was less than 2,000 votes. Thirty seats were decided by a margin less than 3,000 and 45 seats with less than 5,000. Such tight margins are often seen in municipal and panchayat elections but not common in a state where the assembly seats are as big. These margins suggest that 20 per cent of the total seats in the state were extremely tight fights.

Madhya Pradesh Margin Calculator

The belief in the BJP leadership is that a stronger organisational strength gives the party an advantage in tight fights with the Congress. In Gujarat, the party had managed to turn a disproportionate percentage of the tight fights in its favour, which ensured that the BJP managed to come back to power for a historic sixth term in the state.

However, the same did not happen in Madhya Pradesh where the Congress ended up winning 70 per cent of the seats that were decided by a margin of less than 1,00 votes. For a party that prides itself for its ability to mobilise voters and bring them to the voting booths, to miss out on a historic victory in Madhya Pradesh by a mere 4,337 votes is a cause of grave heartburn in the top echelons of the BJP.

Madhya Pradesh Margin Calculator.

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