The victory margin in nearly five dozen of Gujarat’s 182 constituencies was 5% or lower in the Assembly elections, whose results were announced on Monday. In 29 seats, candidates won by a margin of less than 2%.

Although the Congress tried to save face by claiming that the BJP had won by narrow victory margins in several constituencies, the actual numbers would embarrass the Congress itself more than the BJP – of the 57 seats with victory margins of 5% or lower, the BJP won 25 and Congress 30.

Just 170 votes – the closest victory – separated the Congress’ Chaudhari Harjibhai and the BJP’s Raut Madhubhai Bapubhai in Kaprada constituency of Valsad district. The next was in Godhra, where BJP’s CK Raulji beat the Congress candidate by 258 votes, or 0.14%.

As many as 35 seats were won by a margin of fewer than 5,000 votes.

Here is a graph to show how the BJP and Congress managed to just scrape through in 57 constituencies:

Himachal Pradesh

In the northern hill state, the victory margins for 16 seats were lower than 5% – 10 of them even lower than 2%. The closest victory was for Congress’ Jagat Singh Negi in Kinnaur, where he won by 120 votes, or 0.29% of all votes.

Of the 16 seats, the Congress won nine and the BJP, six. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) won its only seat – Theog – by a margin of 3.42%.