Chandigarh: The Congress has increased its tally from 46 to 77 assembly seats and stormed to power in Punjab after 10 years but its vote share declined by 1.61% compared to the last state elections.

Compared to its performance five years back, the Congress’ votes share declined by 1.61% to 38.5% this time from 40.11% it had secured in 2012. The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) saw a vote share decline of 9.45% polling 25.3% votes as compared with 34.75% five years back. Its seat tally declined to 15 from 56 last time.

The BJP too had a lesser share in terms of vote percentage as compared to 2012 assembly elections. The vote share declined to 5.4%—a decline of 1.83% from the 2012 poll share of 7.13%. It was the new entrant Arvind Kejriwal led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) which played spoilsport for the two traditional contenders—ruling SAD-BJP alliance and Congress—as far as vote share is concerned.

Contesting the Punjab state elections for the first time, AAP polled 23.7% of the total votes. Most other parties got negligible vote share of less than two per cent each. A total of 1,08,157 voters used the None of the Above (NOTA) option.

PTI