Varanasi has been Modi’s Lok Sabha constituency since 2014, and his winning margin there has moved considerably across his three elections. This article lays out the vote-by-vote data for each.
2014: The First Win
In his first Varanasi election, contesting against Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal and Congress’s Ajay Rai, Modi won 5,81,022 votes, or 56.48 percent of the vote, against Kejriwal’s 2,09,238 votes, according to constituency data compiled by IndiaVotes.com. Rai finished a distant third with 75,614 votes. The resulting margin of victory was 3,71,784 votes, on a turnout of 58.3 percent.
2019: The Peak Margin
Modi’s 2019 re-election, against Samajwadi Party candidate Shalini Yadav, backed by the SP-BSP-RLD alliance, and Congress’s Ajay Rai again, produced his largest-ever Varanasi margin. He won 6,74,664 votes, or 63.86 percent of the vote, against Yadav’s 1,95,159 and Rai’s 1,52,548, according to IndiaVotes.com data, corroborated by Scroll.in’s coverage. The margin came to 4,79,505 votes, described by Scroll.in as representing 45.4 percent of all valid votes cast, an unusually dominant result even by the standards of his own earlier win.
2024: The Sharpest Drop
Modi’s 2024 re-election, again against Ajay Rai, this time representing the Congress-led INDIA bloc, produced a markedly different result. He won 6,12,970 votes, a vote share of 54.24 percent, against Rai’s 4,60,457, a margin of 1,52,513 votes, according to Business Standard’s coverage, which described it as Modi’s “lowest-ever” Varanasi margin. Deccan Herald’s coverage of the same result specifically flagged it as his weakest showing across all three Varanasi contests.
The Scale of the Drop
Comparing the three results directly shows the margin moved from 3,71,784 votes in 2014, up to a peak of 4,79,505 in 2019, then down sharply to 1,52,513 in 2024, a drop of roughly 3.2 lakh votes between his best and most recent results, according to analysis published by The Quint.
Vote Share Compared to Margin
It’s worth separating out vote share from the raw margin figure, since the two tell slightly different stories. Modi’s vote share moved from 56.48 percent in 2014, to a peak of 63.86 percent in 2019, down to 54.24 percent in 2024, according to IndiaVotes.com and Business Standard’s compiled figures. Even at its 2024 low point, his vote share stayed above his original 2014 winning share, meaning the sharper-looking drop in the raw margin number partly reflects a more consolidated single opposition challenger in 2024 rather than Modi’s own support collapsing back toward 2014 levels specifically.
How Varanasi’s Turnout Changed Over Time
Turnout in the constituency has also shifted modestly across the three elections, moving from 58.3 percent in 2014 to 59.4 percent in 2019, according to IndiaVotes.com’s compiled figures, both relatively moderate turnout levels for a high-profile national constituency, suggesting the changing margin owes more to how the opposition vote was distributed among candidates than to any dramatic swing in overall voter participation itself.
Why the Margin Fell in 2024
The Quint’s constituency-level analysis pointed to several specific factors behind the 2024 drop. A more consolidated opposition vote, with a comparatively smooth transfer of Samajwadi Party support toward Rai’s Congress candidacy under the INDIA bloc’s seat-sharing arrangement, contrasted with the split opposition vote of 2014 and 2019. Field reporting cited in the same analysis also pointed to visible overconfidence among some BJP workers on the ground, quoting one Vishwa Hindu Parishad worker’s remark that “this is our government anyway,” a sentiment The Quint’s reporting linked to reduced grassroots mobilisation efforts compared to previous campaigns. The analysis also found BJP’s vote declining across all five assembly segments within the Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency, with the Rohaniya segment alone seeing Rai’s tally jump from 17,799 votes in 2019 to 1,01,225 in 2024.
The Wider Uttar Pradesh Context
The Varanasi result did not happen in isolation. Business Standard and Deccan Herald both noted that BJP’s overall Uttar Pradesh Lok Sabha tally fell sharply in 2024, from 62 seats in 2019 to 33 seats, a statewide swing against the party that both outlets framed as consistent with, and likely contributing to, the shrinking Varanasi margin specifically.
What a Margin Actually Measures
It’s worth being precise about what a falling margin does and doesn’t indicate. Modi still won each of his three Varanasi elections comfortably, and a shrinking margin between a very large win and a still-solid one, as happened here, reflects a genuine but partial shift in the constituency’s voting pattern rather than a result that was ever remotely close. Political analysts generally read Varanasi’s 2024 numbers as one data point within the much larger story of BJP’s reduced Uttar Pradesh tally that year, rather than as a standalone verdict specific to Modi’s personal standing in the constituency.
Bottom Line
Modi’s Varanasi margin rose from roughly 3.7 lakh votes in 2014 to a peak of nearly 4.8 lakh in 2019, before falling sharply to about 1.5 lakh in 2024, a decline analysts have linked to opposition vote consolidation under the INDIA bloc and a broader statewide swing against BJP in Uttar Pradesh that year, even as Modi retained the seat comfortably each time.
Disclaimer: This article is based on publicly available Election Commission of India data compiled by third-party sources and news reports listed below. It is written for general informational purposes and does not represent an official statement from the Government of India or the Election Commission of India.
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