Madhya Pradesh:
In MP, Congress got fewer votes on aggregate than BJP, but trumped it when it came to seats, winning 114 against BJP’s 109
-Live Mint
[…]
The BJP got less than 20% of the votes in only two seats. The Congress got less than 20% of the votes in 11 seats. Putting it another way, the Congress managed to concentrate more of its vote share in winnable seats, while the BJP ended up spreading itself too thin, thus being unable to translate its superior vote share into an electoral victory.
Not only is number of votes important, but also how they are spread across the state. For all the people who thinks BJP always wins, this is an important study. Look at Madhya Pradesh Election.
While getting a higher number of seats with a lower vote share is a reasonably common occurrence in India, what makes this occasion special is that the beneficiary of the “superior distribution” is the Congress.
-Live Mint
Superior Distribution is the key.
Rajasthan:
Elsewhere, Rajasthan gave further credence to the concept that in a contest with two major parties, a small difference in vote share can lead to a big difference in seat share. There, the Congress vote share was barely 50 basis points higher than that of the BJP, but this resulted in a difference of 26 seats, with the Congress nearly getting an absolute majority with 99 out of 199 declared seats
-Live Mint
This is even more crazy. With 50% votes, Congress got 99 out of 199 seats. Congress got the right 50%. Properly distributed across the states with just enough majority to win a constituency.
This is why people like Amit Shah is very important. They not only have to plan the strategy of getting majority of votes, but they also have to analyze how the votes are distributed.
Getting 100% of votes in one constituency will give you one seat.
Getting 51% of the votes in one constituency will also give you ONLY ONE Seat.
This is a very good article.