By Gautam Datt

New Delhi, May 24 (IANS): The BJP made major gains in rural constituencies of east India and lost the most in rural north.

A deep dive into the Lok Sabha election results brings out a clear picture of how the nation voted in a historic verdict in favour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) increased its tally from 40 to 64 in rural east. The story was different in rural north where the number of seats for NDA came down from 70 to 56 despite a 10 percent increase in the vote share.

For the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), major gains were in rural and semi-urban south. In rural south, the UPA had a gain of 10 and in semi-urban south it rose by 20.

In rural east, the Congress-led UPA lost 7 and others 17.

NDA lost a seat and a vote share of 3 to 4 per cent in urban northeast. But in rural and semi urban northeast, the NDA won 3 additional seats and its vote share went up by 3 to 5 per cent.

Across east and semi-urban north, others lost 16 seats and 7-8 per cent vote share respectively.

The results show that NDA found connect with rural India against the notion that the villagers were under distress. Even if they faced major problems, the voters felt that the solution lay with Prime Minister Modi.

The BJP alone won 303 Lok Sabha seats on its own. The NDA won 39 out of 40 seats in Bihar, BJP won 11 seats in Jharkhand, 18 in West Bengal, 9 in Assam, both seats in Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura and 8 in Odisha.

The numbers also showed that there was not much rural-urban divide as was being perceived.