610 Political Parties Scored Zero in LS Polls

The Lok Sabha elections are over and we have a new government at the Centre with Narendra Modi donning the Prime Minister's chair for the second term.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on its own managed to win 303 out of the 542 seats, which accounts to 55.90 percentage of total seat share.

The Congress won 52 seats. Polling was stopped in one seat in Tamil Nadu.
However, it was not rosy for a lot of political parties as they failed to win even a single seat in the elections.

As per data available with the Election Commission of India, a total of 610 political parties (mainly regional and small) across the country failed to open their accounts while 530 got zero percent vote share.

Some parties that drew a blank in the elections are Forward Bloc, Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), Jannayak Janata Party (JJP), Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF), Rashtriya Lok Samta Party, Sarva Janata Party (SJPA), Jammu & Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party, All India NR Congress (AINRC), Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Paattali Makkal Katchi (PMK).

Moreover, there are in total 13 parties that managed to enter the Lok Sabha by winning just one seat and these are- the Aam Aadmi Party (Sangrur, Punjab), All Jharkhand Students Union Party (Giridih, Jharkhand), AIADMK (Theni, Tamil Nadu), All India United Democratic Front (Dhubri, Assam), Revolutionary Socialist Party (Kollam, Kerala), Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu), Sikkim Krantikari Morcha (Sikkim), Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (Nagaland), Janata Dal-Secular (Hassan, Karnataka), Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (Nagaur, Rajasthan), Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (Rajmahal, Jharkhand), Kerala Congress (M) (Kottayam, Kerala) and Mizo National Front (Mizoram).

It may be mentioned here that of the 610 parties, 80 got about 1 per cent or less vote percentage in the overall vote share while the remaining 530 got zero per cent.

In 2019 a total of 37 political parties have made it to the Lok Sabha, which in 2014 was 38 and political parties that won one seat in 2014 were 12.