India is a country in a perpetual state of elections and 2022 was no different. The year that began with action-packed elections to five states — Manipur, Goa, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab — ended on an equal high with Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat going to polls. While the Assembly elections saw the BJP clearly maintain its dominance, the Aam Aadmi Party did manage to make some headway in Gujarat, while registering resounding victories in Punjab and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections.
While the Bharatiya Janata Party formed a government in five of the seven states that went to polls, the results came as a dampener for Congress which tasted victory only in Himachal Pradesh. Here’s a look at the elections that happened this year:
Goa election results 2022
The BJP emerged as the single largest party in Goa by winning 20 assembly seats in the 40-member assembly, just one shy of the halfway mark, and quickly enlisted the support of regional outfit Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and three Independent MLAs to form its government for a third consecutive term in the state. Overcoming anti-incumbency, the saffron party even improved its 2017 tally when it had won 13 seats.
It was a poor show for the Congress, which won 11 seats, down from 17 five years ago, and its ally Goa Forward Party (GFP), one. The new entrant Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the MGP won two seats each. Interestingly, the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC), which had a pre-poll alliance with the MGP in the elections which took place on February 14, drew a blank. The Goa election was the first after the demise of former Defence minister and Goa CM Manohar Parrikar in 2019. Pramod Sawant took oath as the Chief Minister of the state for a second consecutive term.
Uttar Pradesh elections 2022
In the state of Uttar Pradesh where elections were held in seven phases and the results announced on March 10, the BJP won 255 seats in the 403-member assembly and its allies won 18 seats, giving the saffron party a clean sweep and a second consecutive term. With this record, the BJP became the first party to retain power in the state since 1985. However, the saffron party’s tally was down from the 2017 elections when it had won 300 seats. The Samajwadi Party (SP) with its allies notched up victory on 125 seats, nearly double that of its last electoral outing.
The Congress, which contested on its own for the first time after many years, failed miserably in the state, winning just two seats and a vote share of only 2.33 per cent.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath returned to the throne for the second term and was sworn in on March 25.
A lot of factors contributed to the party’s win in the 2022 elections, including law and order, welfare schemes like the free ration scheme of the Centre and state governments, the Hindutva card, the mass coordination of the party, where the saffron party continued its door-to-door outreach even during the lockdown, as well as the shrinking opposition parties.
Uttarakhand elections 2022
It was again a sweep for the saffron party in the hill-state Uttarakhand. The BJP won 47 seats, easily crossing the halfway mark. The BJP’s gamble in Uttarakhand to install Pushkar Singh Dhami as the CM, replacing Tirath Singh Rawat, just months before the polls worked wonders for the party. In March, the party won a second successive term in the state known for booting out the party in power every time.
However, the BJP returned to power with a shrunken majority, winning 47 seats compared to 57 in a House of 70 in 2017 while the Congress’ tally stood at 19.
At its very first meeting, the state cabinet cleared a proposal to constitute a committee of experts, which will be headed by retired Supreme Court judge Ranjana Prakash Desai, to draft a Uniform Civil Code (UCC), fulfilling an election commitment.
Manipur elections 2022
Elections to the 60-member Manipur Assembly were held in two phases – February 28 and March 5, and the results were announced on March 10. The BJP formed a government on its own in the state, marking the first full-fledged BJP government in the northeastern border state, clinching 32 seats, and returning to power for a second consecutive term with N Biren Singh at the helm as the chief minister of Manipur.
The saffron party’s partners in the North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA), the northeastern version of the NDA– the National People’s Party (NPP) and Naga Peoples Front (NPF)–which fought separately, secured 7 and five seats respectively, while Bihar ally Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) won 6 seats.
The Congress could just bag five seats. In the 2017 elections, the BJP, even while fighting the Okram Ibobi Singh-led Congress government facing three-term incumbency, with all its might could pocket only 21 seats. The Congress, with 28 seats, emerged as the single-largest party.
Punjab elections 2022
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) stormed to power in Punjab, bagging a record 92 of the 117 seats, decimating the Congress and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)-Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) combine, in the elections that were held on February 20, registering a voter turnout of 71.95 per cent. The results were announced on March 10.
While the AAP bagged three-fourths of the seats, the Congress won 18, the SAD three, the BJP two and the BSP just one. An independent also emerged victorious.
This was a huge win for the party as the Congress had won 87 seats in 1992 assembly elections, which was the highest tally after the reorganisation of Punjab in 1966. Political stalwarts like former chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi, Parkash Singh Badal, Amarinder Singh, Navjot Singh Sidhu and Sukhbir Singh Badal had to face the drubbing in the 2022 Punjab elections.
The AAP’s maiden victory in the state was a vast improvement from its performance in the 2017 elections when it had finished second behind Congress.
AAP, which had announced its chief ministerial candidate before the polls, Bhagwant Mann, who won from Dhuri by a huge margin of 58,206 votes, broke convention, and took oath in Bhagat Singh’s village Khatkarkalan in Nawanshahr district, and not at the Raj Bhawan in Chandigarh on March 16.
Himachal Pradesh elections 2022
The Congress wrested Himachal Pradesh from the BJP winning 40 seats in the 68-member Assembly in the hill state which maintained its tradition of not voting any incumbent government to power since 1985. The BJP won 25 seats, Independents won from three constituencies and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which had contested from 67 seats, failed to open its account.
Two days after the results were announced, the Congress leadership named former Congress state chief Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu as the CM and he took oath as the 15th Chief Minister on December 11. Born in Nadaun in Hamirpur district, Sukhu has rose up the ladder in party leadership from a student leader to a politician, becoming a four-time MLA from the Nadaun constituency.
A lot of factors contributed to the party’s win in the state, including anti-incumbency and the hill state’s time-honoured tradition of not repeating a sitting government; the support of government employees and focus on Old Pension Scheme, among others.
Gujarat Elections 2022
The year ended on a high for the BJP which registered an emphatic win in Gujarat, extending its dominance in the state once ruled by Narendra Modi as its Chief MInister. The BJP’s victory in the 182-member Gujarat Assembly shattered records, as it bettered the Congress’ highest-ever tally of 149 in 1985, and the 127 seats the saffron party secured in 2002.
The BJP registered a landslide victory in the home state of the Prime Minister and Home minister Amit Shah, clinching 156 seats, registering a seventh consecutive win for the party in the state polls.
The Congress’s tally was reduced to 17, while new player AAP won 5. Although, it bagged five seats, it was a win-win situation for the Arvind Kejriwal-led party, as with the win it got the status of being a ‘national party’. Recognised as a state party in Delhi, Punjab and Goa, with Gujarat it met all that was needed for it to be a national party. To earn a national party status, a political outfit needs to be recognized in at least four states, and to be recognised as a state party, it needs to win at least two seats and 6 per cent of votes polled in the Assembly election.
MCD elections 2022
Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP won the prestigious Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) election, bagging 134 wards of the total 250 and marking an end to the 15-year rule of the BJP, which clinched 104 municipal wards. The Congress was reduced to nine wards.
In the 2017 MCD polls, the BJP trounced both the AAP and Congress, winning 181 of 272 wards of the three municipal corporations. The AAP in its civic polls debut won 48 and the Congress 30 wards.
This was the first civic election after the fresh delimitation exercise. There were 272 wards in Delhi and three corporations — NDMC, SDMC and EDMC — in Delhi from 2012-2022, before being reunified into an MCD that had formally come into existence on May 22. The erstwhile MCD, established in 1958, was trifurcated in 2012 during Sheila Dikshit’s tenure as the chief minister.