Analysis on the 2014 Lok Sabha Election results

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.

2014 Lok Sabha election prediction & post poll alliances

So we have reached the end of nothing short of a marathon election process: 9 phases over 5 weeks where 55 crore out of a possible 81 crore voted. Everyone across not only India but also the world is waiting with baited breath as to who will form the next government of the world’s biggest democracy

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A slew of polls from the various media houses have been throwing various numbers at us over the past couple of days with almost all of them giving NDA a clear majority. But I believe NDA by itself will be practically at the door step but not over the halfway mark. I will explain my theory on NDA not crossing 272 mark later in the blog. The “last mile” problem that I talked about in my previous blog has become much easier with the surge in support for NDA/BJP over the past 2 months when they were expected to get anywhere in the 200-225 range. I believe the “critical mass” number for NDA is 250. If they get over it finding allies is going to be easy as smaller parties & independents always quickly coalesce around the majority coalition to give it the sufficient numbers to form the next government. But keep in mind that Modi just doesn’t want to simply get to 272+. He would want to be well over 300+ to give stability to his government. He understands that having a slim majority is invitation to blackmail from any of his allies to pull the rug from under him on the pretext of opposing any slightly controversial development or reform policy issue that he might want to implement. With his pro development plank during this election campaign there will be several tough policy decisions that need to be taken over the next 5 years. Rather be on tenterhooks for his entire term he would want to get what I call “blackmail proof” majority where multiple allies would have to withdraw support to collapse the government.

That’s brought us to the obvious question of how to get there. In my previous blog I had put forth the “Teen Deviyan” formula for Modi to become PM: Mamta, Mayawati  & Jaylalitha. I go over them again in order of least likely to most likely.

 Mamta is dealing with issues of bad governance in her state since she became CM in 2011 plus some level of anti-incumbency & dissatisfaction among the Bengali electorate. With the Left pretty much a spent force in West Bengal & BJP rising nationally including in her state she perceives the BJP to be her main rival in this election. BJP sensing an opportunity to make inroads in WB for the first time ever had Modi hold election rallies in WB which was virtually unheard of in past campaigns. Thus Mamta has come out swinging hard against Modi & been relentless & acerbic in her attacks for the past few weeks which rules her out as a post-election partner most probably.

Mayawati has also come out strong against Modi recently. It was interesting that she was pretty much “silent” against BJP in the beginning of the campaign. But as the campaign wore on BJP was gaining ground in UP including among lower caste & Dalit’s. This erosion of her core support set the alarm bells ringing in BSP. She suddenly started vigorously criticizing Modi & BJP in middle of campaign. She had hoped for consolidating the Muslim vote towards BS P that was not happy with both Samajwadi Party (SP) due to Muzzafarnagar & apathy towards Muslims in general in spite of fielding several Muslim candidates. Thus she had to come out openly ruling out any post poll alliance with BJP trying to woo more secular voters to her side.

That leaves Jaylalitha who from beginning I mentioned is the most “natural ally” for Modi. She has enjoyed the most cordial relations with Modi in the past of all regional party leaders. She & her party AIADMK have been the least vocal about opposing BJP/Modi. Her 25 to 30 MP’s can help Modi secure the 300+ majority he desires.

There are 2 more leaders to add as possible partners: BJD from Orissa & YSRC from Seemandhra. BJD recently has stated the possibility of supporting the NDA government from outside. Jagmohan Reddy of Seemadhra has openly mentioned that he will support anyone at Centre as he needs all the help he needs for development of the bifurcated state Seemandhra. One can put the same logic for TRS (Telangana Rashtra Samiti) for Telengana. But due to their closeness to Congress it might be far-fetched possibility right now.

So instead of the Teen Deviyan, the new formula for Modi is the “Southern formula”.

Now on to the exciting part, the actual predictions. I stated earlier that NDA will probably not cross 272. Here are my reasons.

Most exit polls have been giving the BJP lead NDA coalition a clear majority at 272+. One prediction from Chanakya is even giving the NDA 340 seats. This big of a number for NDA me sounds farfetched to me especially with the small sample size of just under 39K. My biggest gripe with all these polls is the sample size versus the sheer size & diversity of the Indian electorate. I found most of these polls have very small sample sizes of under 50K & +/-3-4% error rate which is pretty big in psephology (scientific analysis elections).

As seen in 2004 & 2009 these exit polls were way of the mark. Some people have theorized this due to oversampling of the urban electorate which is usually pro BJP. I am not sure how many of these polls are done in swing rural bellwether & swing constituencies.

Most people attribute BJP & Modi’s recent outburst against the election commission for not allowing him to hold an election in Varanasi plus the selfie that he took in Gandhinagar after he voted. Very few people know that actually it was just the final set of issues in the buildup of a long running dispute & grievances that BJP had with the Election Commission that culminated in an outburst last week. BJP had been complaining to EC about the booth capturing by SP in the April 24 & April 30^th phases which may easily lead to the loss of several seats in UP. There have been similar complaints in Bihar & West Bengal. Doing weIl in Bihar & UP is quintessential to BJP’s overall national game. If they were really confident of doing well in these states on back of a “Modi tsunami”, crossing 272 would not be an issue & they would not make a fuss about the strong arm tactics by SP which keep in mind occur frequently in Indian elections. Another point is that in the Indian heartland the “official state machinery” is used to bias the election towards the incumbent party which I don’t believe the opinion polls also take into account.

Based on my analysis & number crunching I predict the following ranges for NDA, UPA & Others. NDA: 257-260, UPA: 112-116 & Others: 169-173.

Neither am I am anti Modi nor do I want to dampen any NDA supporter with this prediction. Modi has orchestrated this election campaign very well like a presidential campaign where he has appealed to the voter to vote for him rather than the local NDA candidate. He has had a significant hand in reviving the fortunes of the BJP to become relevant at the national level after a decade of infighting & borderline irrelevance. Everyone agrees that BJP will be the singles largest party & NDA the biggest coalition but I don’t agree with the margin in most these polls. But looking at this objectively from an NDA perspective a number around 258 is above the 250 “critical mass” I talked about earlier which should get them over the hump & stich together a coalition government. Thus on basis of this prediction I project Narendra Modi as the 14^th Prime Minister of India. 

“TEEN DEVIYAN"

On 17th April 1999 after orchestrating the fall of the Vajpayee led NDA government, Subramanian Swamy, a man who is never short for words proudly proclaimed to the media that the credit for the fall of Vajpayee’s government has to go to three ladies : Sonia Gandhi, J Jaylalitha & Mayawati, describing them as “teen deviyan” : Lakshmi, Saraswati and Durga respectively.

Fast forward to the present day & the upcoming 2014 national elections, I believe the key to next formation of government is in the hands of a slightly altered set of “teen deviyan” which I will explain further in this article.

Today by all accounts due to the very high level of dissatisfaction with the current UPA government due to multiple issues like price rise, corruption, stagnation of economic growth & not to forget two term incumbency, the current UPA government & particularly the Congress party is heading for a severe & probably historic drubbing at the polls in May. So all eyes not only inside but also outside India are looking towards the BJP led NDA coalition to possibly form the next government. BJP under the leadership of their prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi looks to be in a good shape heading towards the election, but the overall NDA alliance is the worrying point for them. NDA today is a shell of its former self in the Vajpayee days when it had multiple coalition partners.  NDA today is basically a BJP + 2: Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) & Shiv Sena (SS) & lacks any other substantial allies.Recent addition of Ram Vilas Paswan's LJP might help them with few more seats in Bihar but that is not the kind of sizeable addtition that NDA is looking for currently. The general opinion among the various pollsters is that NDA will win around 200 – 225 seats leaving it short by around 50 to 75 seats from majority. But NDA in its current form will struggle mightily to get anywhere near the half way mark of 272.

The biggest challenge for Modi & BJP will be to find politicians willing to support them either before or after the election. Not many leaders want to be associated with Modi in any way, shape or form let alone seen supporting his government at the national level. With Nitish Kumar making enough noise about Modi’s secular credentials, a rapprochement between his JD(U) & BJP seems nonexistent right now. One can safely rule out Mulayam Singh’s Samajwadi Party (SP) given his track record of heavy minority appeasement. Lalu Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has always been a fierce critic of Modi & is also in the same category as Mulayam. Safely excluding the Left parties from teaming up with BJP, this leaves Modi with very few possible coalition partners. Biju Patnaik BJD is neither committing openly to joining the Third Front nor joining NDA. That leaves very few options for NDA to cobble the necessary support to cross the halfway mark..

 This brings me back to the discussion about our “teen deviyan”. Almost 15 years have passed since Swamy’s comment which is like a century in today’s ever changing coalition politics of India. So it is but natural that some of the “deviyans” in our story has to change.

J Jaylalitha for most of last year appeared like a good coalition partner for BJP as Modi & her seemed to have a good rapport but recently the distance between the two parties has widened. Now she does not want to not openly commit to supporting BJP just in case BJP falters badly before the general elections. This leaves her with leverage to become PM in case she is one the biggest partner in a hypothetical Third Front government.

Second is Mayawati who in past has partnered with BJP on more than one occasion to form coalition governments in Uttar Pradesh. Unlike Mulayam she might be open to joining NDA coalition or supporting the government from the outside. Being in power at Central level will help her neutralize & keep in check Mulayam & Akhilesh SP’s government in UP.

Third & the new entrant to the list is Mamta Banerjee. She was a part of the earlier NDA government where Mamta was the railway minister. She has been prone to change sides very easily & has been part of both NDA & UPA governments. At present time like many other regional satarps she has been very vocal about Modi. But given her track record it won’t be far-fetched for her to use her big contingent of MP's to support BJP while extracting her pound of flesh from BJP in return to get important ministries & a good economic package for West Bengal.

The Third Front coalition seems to be collapsing a little bit with both AIADMK & BJD both refusing to support it openly. This might gravitate both Jaylalitha & Biju Patnaik back to NDA fold. Also opinion polls predict around 20 seats for the parties of the above “deviyan”. It might take two or  possibly just even one of them (plus possibly Biju Patnaik's BJD) to help NDA to go past or very close to the magic number of 272. With Mamta being a long shot for now to support Modi if NDA does well; it might come down to Modi being able to woo the other two: Mayawati or Mamta.

After all these years Swamy’s comments from 1999 still hold resonance in a very different way in 2014. In a bizarre twist of irony Swamy who is no stranger to changing sides every few years joined the BJP formally a few months ago. Swamy who brought down the BJP government 15 years ago with this “teen deviyan” formula might just have the right formula for Modi to ascend to the PM’s chair in 2014.