Let me start
by saying that only Chanakya got the election results spot on, who many people
including yours truly thought were predicting a way over optimistic seat tally
for BJP & its allies. Everyone felt that BJP was going to be the single
largest party & the combined NDA seat tally would be hovering somewhere
close to the 272 half way mark. But very few expected such a huge landslide for
the BJP & NDA, including a majority in parliament for BJP just by itself.
Almost all full time psephologists & also a part timer like me got it wrong
with our predictions. I believe healthy dose skepticism prevailed after the
overestimation of seat count for BJP/NDA in exit polls for the previous 2
general elections (in 2004 & 2009) which contributed to an underestimation
this time around.
Before I got
into my analysis here is a fascinating summary for the two main national
parties from past 2 elections.
2009 BJP
vote share (19%) Seats 116, Congress vote share (29%) Seats 206
2014 BJP
vote share (31%) Seats 282, Congress vote share (19%) Seats 44
This might
be the most head scratching piece of information from this election. How does
one party win 116 seats with 19% vote share & while another wins only 44.
Also one party wins 206 seats with 29% vote share while another one with just
an extra 2% gets a majority on its own. One might quickly dismiss these facts
as quirky due to the fact that Congress derives its vote share from all states
while BJP is mostly concentrated in north, central & west India. Furthermore with 38.5% of vote NDA at 336
seats & BJP with 31% of vote with 282 seats is the smallest vote share a majority
government has gotten in history of India. This numbers has lead BJP & Modi
detractors to doubts the existence of a Modi wave in this election throwing out
statements saying “that 6 out of every 10 people in India didn’t vote for BJP
or its ally”. But I believe this is an over simplification of the Indian
electoral system. There was an existence of a Modi wave which I will explain
over the course of my blog.
The main
factors for the BJP landslide in addition to the no brainer 12% rise in BJP
vote share are the 1) First past the post electoral (FPP) system & 2)
Regional coalition partners 3) Campaign style & voter mindset
FPP &
coalition partners are kind of inter twined & I will go into the detail
about the first past the post electoral system later on but first on coalition
partners. In addition to the existing coalition partners from previous election
campaigns, Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in Punjab & Shiv Sena in Maharashtra,
BJP & Modi stitched up new coalition partners in several states including
TDP (Chandrababu Naidu) in Andhra Pradesh, LJP (Ram Vilas Paswan), Upendra
Kushwaha’s RLSP & Apna Dal in Uttar Pradesh. BJP even opened its account in
Tamil Nadu by forging an alliance with a combination of 3 small Dravidian regional
parties. In contrast Congress lost few
of its alliance partners from UPA-II & didn’t have any allies in many
states especially in South India. DMK broke its alliance with Congress which
decimated the Congress in Tamil Nadu. They couldn’t even forge an alliance with
TRS who would seem a natural partner in Telangana especially after spending so
much political capital on simply forming a new state to retain a few seats in Telangana.
The first
past the post (FPP) electoral system is where the candidate with simply the
most votes wins his constituency no matter what his vote share is. Many other
countries use a proportional system where the seats are assigned per
state/region/province based on vote share across entire geographical area
versus a localized constituency. In first past the post (FPP) system if there
is a four cornered fight one could theoretically win by just getting 25.01% of
the vote share in each constituency while in proportional fare system one would
just get over 25% of seats in the entire region . One can debate all day long
the pros & cons of the first past the post versus proportional representation
system which might benefit some versus other parties. Many people that have
railed against this system that has provided BJP with the high seat share for
the vote share that they have gotten have conveniently forgotten that this is
the exact system that Congress benefited from for several elections since
independence. Next I am going to break down the states in 2 distinct
categories: 1) Bipolar Head to head contests 2) Multi party contests.
In states
where there is a straight contest between 2 major parties & the vote share difference
between both parties starts creeping into the double digit percentage range,
you start getting landslide victories for majority party. Gujarat (20%)
Rajasthan (17%) MP (19%) saw either complete sweeps or near sweeps for BJP. Likewise
is the case for other states such as Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Goa
etc. where BJP by simply picking up the vote share lost by Congress, won nearly
all the seats in these states.
In multi
cornered fight states a much smaller vote % difference leads to dramatic
landslides as the vote gets split amongst various parties. In this type of
states where BJP either doesn’t have a big presence or is looking to increase its
seat tally, by getting the right alliances BJP scored big. In AP the difference
in vote share between Naidu’s TDP & Jagmohan Reddy’s YSRC is less than a
percentage point. But when you add the 8% BJP provided TDP in a multi cornered
contest with Congress & TRS you get a majority of seats going to TDP/BJP
combine versus YSRC. Ditto is the case for UP & Bihar but with a different
angle. For long BJP had been described as a party of upper caste Brahmins &
baniyas. Over the years BJP has always struggled to gain support of lower caste
voters who have instead coalesced with the many regional leaders in these
states. OBC’s make up 54% & 39% of the population in Bihar & UP
respectively. With negligible support from minorities , for BJP to do well in
these states the electoral dynamics dictate they get support from a broad range
of Hindus not just the upper castes. Many opposition figures & liberals
have blamed solely the Muzzafarnagar riots & post polarization as the main reason
that BJP did so well in UP this time around. This is another one of the classic
over simplification myths of this election. Modi no doubt with his clean image
& plank of development during the campaign trail pulled several voters towards
BJP but he also pulled out the caste card (referring himself to as an OBC)
during a few rallies in UP hoping to connect in the heavily caste dominated
constituencies of UP. His master strategist Amit Shah also offered 25-27
tickets to OBC’s in UP which incidentally was more than Mayawati, a
self-proclaimed champion of backwards castes. BJP formed an alliance with the
Apna Dal, a party of Kurmis, a backward caste luring in more OBC voters. Mayawati
towards the end of her campaign felt the backward caste vote slipping from her
& started to attack Modi vigorously, even asking Modi to prove his OBC
credentials. All these above factors contributed to an astounding vote share of
42% & factoring in a 20% difference to the next biggest vote share in a 4
way contest, BJP swept UP. The only 7/80 seats that they lost were pocket
boroughs of either Congress (Rahul Gandhi & Sonia Gandhi) & Samajwadi
Party (Mulayam (2 seats), Mulayam’s 2 nephews & daughter in law). A
hypothetical tie of up of any 2 of the 3 in UP between Congress, Mayawati &
Mulayam might have checked BJP to a large extent. In Bihar BJP aligned with 2
backward caste leaders Ram Vilas Paswan’s LJP & the Upendra Kushwaha’s RLSP (even I hadn’t heard of him before this
election) to strengthen their pull among the OBC & EBC’s in Bihar. This
successfully neutralized the Congress-Lalu axis. Most surprising factor has
been the complete decimation of Nitish Kumar in this election. Congress &
RJD combined got 1 percent less vote share than BJP itself. Bringing in the
extra 9% from LJP & RLSP helped BJP alliance come out on top in 31/40
seats. Looking at the past several Lok Sabha elections Ram Vilas Paswan always
ends up on the winning side. Maybe he is the true “bellweather” of Bihar
politics. The joke floating around now a days is that to predict Bihar just
look at whose side Paswan is on. Thus BJP in addition to picking up the majority
of the votes that Congress lost in these
states , plus a little from regional parties in addition to smart regional tie
ups did very well also in mulit cornered contests.
AAP was
considered the X factor for this election. AAP looked like harming the BJP’s
chances back in December when the Delhi assembly election results were declared.
Back then they had a lot of momentum in terms of enthusiasm & party enrollment.
Kejriwal initially targeted the Congress before December but later on thinking
that Congress was a spent force in this election turned his attention solely on
BJP. Kejriwal’s regular rants many of them lunatic in nature made many urban
middle class voters rethink about supporting AAP. He self-destructed as the
campaign wore on while Modi grew in strength. In addition to their declining
support day by day they spread their resources too thin across the country as they
contested in more constituencies than either BJP or Congress. It is no surprise
that they lost deposits in 413 of 432 seats they contested. In spate of few
months AAP went from a serous potential challenger to BJP to anti-BJP vote
spoiler. There was no dearth of options against BJP to start with & AAP
further fragmented the anti-BJP vote which in multi part contest always helps
out the party with the biggest vote share.
Third point
is the campaign style & mindset of the voter. Congress never had clear
vision on how to project itself or how to counteract Modi. It was always on
defensive from beginning. They seriously bungled its regional alliance tie ups.
Call it sheer stupidity or arrogance of the Congress high command who thought
that they could do well without any major partners in many states including
none in south India. They almost began the election campaign with a defeatist
attitude as if they had given up knowing they were going to lose. They firmly
believed that NDA would be checked by regional parties & AAP ,falling short
of majority & unable to partners post-election to form the next government.
Hence Congress will support a Third Front government from the outside for few
years till they recover from the mess of UPA-II & collapse the Third Front
government when they are strong again. By the time they woke up to reality they
were so far behind & resorted to personal attacks on Modi which he is a
master of deflecting to his own advantage like he has done in previous Gujarat
elections. Anyone remember “Maut ka saudagar”? Congress was busier blasting the
“Gujarat model” instead of positively projecting their government’s
achievements. Congress neither could successfully highlight its welfare
programs that it enacted over last 10 years nor shake off the tag of corruption
associated with its government. Not only Congress but also several regional
parties focused on attacking Modi for 2002 riots & spreading fear among
minorities. But today’s electorate is different from what it used to be in the
past. With India’s median age around 25 years & 2/3 of population under the
age of 35, political parties need to calibrate their message towards the youth
of this nation. Shekhar Gupta from Indian Express rightly pointed out that for
today’s youth this is not the Congress party of their fathers &
grandfathers with whom they have a sense of loyalty to vote for as their
forefathers once did. The economic reforms that Manmohan Singh implemented in
1991 uplifted millions of families out of poverty over last 20+ years, but
today’s youth are not satisfied with those gains & have become more aspirational.
Manmohan might have been blamed for the state Congress is in today by actions
of his over past 5 years as PM, but I believe he unleashed a “sleeping giant”
20 years ago that the Congress party is facing the anger of today. The youth
see price rise, economic stagnation, lack of job growth & corruption all as
obstacles to their upward mobility & worry to a lesser extent about caste
& religion. Today the world is much
more connected & they see development & growth in other places which
they can compare against. In the past political parties in lesser developed
areas might get away with fooling people as they had no idea of the development
in other parts of the country. The 10% increase in overall voter turnout was
borne partly out of frustration at way the things are today. Modi from day one
of the campaign has focused his entire poll pitch on positive points i.e.
growth & development agenda. Modi has successfully appealed to their
aspirations & decisively won them over in this election. Congress is still
stuck in the mentality of welfare & dole outs. Today’s youth is not asking
how much free stuff they can get but what have you done for me lately to
improve my life & how can the overall standard of his living be improved.
With rising literacy levels & increasing youth population this problem is
going to become more pronounced in every successive election for parties stuck
in this old mindset.
With Modi’s
development politics, religious, caste & minority appeasement politics
though not eliminated completely has been marginalized to a large extent. In
addition this has proven that the negative style of campaign doesn’t resonate
anymore with today’s voter (personal attacks & fear mongering). There has
to be some serious soul searching for various regional satarps like Mulayam,
Mayawati, Lalu Prasad etc. on the path forward for them. Unless they change
their mindset & focus on good governance versus vote bank politics they
face becoming non relevant in the near future. Modi surely has given them
several sleepless nights but several of them still appear in denial mode
judging from the post poll statements coming from them. Many of them might
start doing the unthinkable & forming alliances with sworn enemies just to
keep BJP at bay. I hoped that they wouldn’t put their head in the sand &
take this easy way out. But unfortunately Nitish Kumar instead of continuing
his good governance has overreacted & joined hands with his onetime arch
enemy Lalu against whose misrule he railed against 9 years ago. Congress also
ran a rudderless campaign with no idea on how to reach out to the electorate.
Sonia Gandhi prefers to stay in background & Rahul Gandhi is always
reluctant to lead by example, be it being a minister in UPA, debating in
parliament or being announced as a PM candidate. Congress being decimated to less
than half of their worst ever tally should make Congress introspect hard at the
decisions they took in UPA-II & in election campaign. There already has
been lot of finger pointing since the results were declared & almost
everyone is totally dissatisfied with Rahul Gandhi and/or his advisors. This
truly has been a transcendent election where after 30 years in Indian politics
a single party has enough seats to form government on its own. Modi was the man of the match of this election
as he single handedly carried the BJP from the doldrums for the past 10 years to
victory. Rajnath Singh can’t get enough credit when 8 months ago he stood up to
the senior leaders in BJP like LK Advani, Sushma Swaraj & Murli Manohar
Joshi to make Modi the PM candidate despite their stiff opposition. Many Modi
& BJP detractors including opposition leaders will quibble about the 31%
national vote share showing a Modi wave but the sweep in majority of states
across the country does show that there was indeed a Modi wave. I will further use
two more statistics to strengthen the theory of Modi wave. Chattisgardh, where
elections are won & lost by razor thin margin of 1% vote share difference, BJP
had a 10% vote share difference. In Maharashtra BJP had 27% vote share versus
20% for Shiv Sena. I can’t imagine without a true Modi wave BJP getting more
votes than Shiv Sena in Maharashtra. It would be foolish for such people to
look at a high national vote share corresponding to a Modi wave as that seems
pretty impossible in a country as big & diverse as India for any party to
get. Modi has with his persona & shrewd alliances have maximizing the BJP’s
seat count in multiple states is itself an amazing achievement. This ensures a
stable government for next 5 years not dependent of whims of few coalition
partners. This thumping majority will give him a free hand to reform & grow
the India economy. If he delivers on his promises he could usher in a golden
age for India. This also will brighten the prospects of BJP in several upcoming
elections for which he has shrewdly kept Amit Shah out of the central cabinet.
