Did BJP lose by 1000 and 2000 votes margin in 41 and 58 seats respectively?

Claim

Rating

Explanation

The Karnataka state assembly election was held on May 10 and votes were counted on May 13. Congress won the election and the Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge is likely to announce the next Chief Minister.

Meanwhile, it is claimed that BJP lost by a 1000 votes margin in 41 seats and by a 2000 votes margin in 58 seats. BJP supporters mention multiple reasons after the election results for their defeat. The same is also seen mentioned along with this claim in some of the posts. Some of the posts that mentioned BJP’s defeat by 1000 and 2000 votes margin can be seen here and here.

BJP lost by a margin of 2000 votes in 58 seats
41 seats by a margin of 1000
Most H's do not see a civilizational threat anywhere
For Hindus FAITH is secondary vs material benefit
Hence, freebies rock!
Enjoy 10 kg free rice, subsidised LPG, 2k cash for ladies#Karnataka

— Chitta2021 (@chitta2021) May 16, 2023

What is the truth?

When skimming through the results of the Karnataka elections on the Election Commission of India (ECI) website, we found that the claim that BJP lost by 1000 votes in 41 seats and by 2000 votes margin in 58 seats is nothing but false.

Congress won 135 seats, BJP won 66 seats and 23 seats were taken by others. Out of the total 224 seats, only 12 are with a margin of less than 1000 and 2000 votes. 8 seats are found to have a margin of less than 1000. 5 out of 8 seats won by Congress has a margin of less than 1000 with BJP being the trailing party in all 5 seats. BJP leads in the remaining 3 seats.

Only 4 seats such as Bidar South, Hadagalli, Homnabad and Nargund are found with a margin between 1000 and 2000 votes. And BJP leads in all four seats with Congress being the trailing party in all 4 places. Therefore, a total of 5 seats such as Gandhi Nagar, Sringeri, Malur, Mudigere and Jagalur have a margin of less than 1000 and 2000 votes with BJP being a trailing party.

Congress won with 135 seats and BJP trails with 66 seats. Even if the 5 seats with less margin were turned positive for the party, it would still not be a majority for the BJP to lead the state of Karnataka.

BJP Candidates who lost Deposit

Candidates are required to submit a security deposit to the Election Commission of India (ECI) while contesting a parliamentary or assembly election. Accordingly, a deposit of ₹25,000 is required for parliamentary elections and ₹10,000 for assembly elections.

According to this, if a candidate fails to secure one-sixth (16.7 per cent) of the total votes cast in his constituency, his deposit will be forfeited. Thus losing the deposit will result in financial setback to the candidates and they will be deemed to have lost the election.

As per the data mentioned above, the BJP has lost its deposit in 31 constituencies out of 224 constituencies contested in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly elections.

Conclusion

It is found that the claim that BJP lost by 1000 votes in 41 seats and by 2000 votes margin in 58 seats is completely false. Only 5 seats are found to have a margin of less than 1000 votes where Congress is leading and BJP is trailing. None of the seats have a margin between 1000 and 2000 votes where BJP is seen as a trailing party.