Bihar Elections 2015: Numbers never lie
- In Politics
- 12:13 PM, Dec 28, 2015
- Murali Ravi
The Bihar election in 2015 was kind of a mini general election of sorts considering the amount of media attention it received. A lot of right leaning folks were hoping that a victory in Bihar will cement Prime Minister Modi’s position in the center. This article does not really hope to delve into the political aftermath of this election. The objective of this article is to focus on the numbers and more specifically vote shares. This author has consistently held the view that vote shares are a better indicator of the general mood of the public rather than the final seat tally. So let’s start by looking at the big picture.
One of the cursory mistakes most analyses seem to overlook when they analyze elections is to look at vote shares without an “in-depth” analysis. The election commission of India always reports overall vote share and the vote share in seats contested. Unless a party contests all the seats, analysts should always look for vote share in seats contested since that provides us with a glimpse of the actual popularity of the party in places where it contested.
Overall, at a summary level BJP in fact retained almost all the votes it received in the 2014 Lok Sabha election at the peak of the Modi wave. BJP managed to retain 37.9% vote in seats contested against the 39.4% that they received in the Lok Sabha Polls. That indicates a marginal dip of just 1.5% and shows a very comforting picture for the BJP. The surface level interpretation would lead us to believe that the average Bihari who trusted in Modi before the 2014 Lok Sabha Election still does so and that has translated into this 37.9% vote share. But a deeper analysis shows some very disturbing data for the BJP.
The BJP contested about 157 of the 243 assembly seats in the 2015 Bihar Polls. Similarly it contested 30 of the 40 parliamentary seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. Upon examining the Assembly level data in the Lok Sabha election and matching it with the 2015 state polls, we find 128 assembly segments where BJP contested in both the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 and Assembly polls in 2015.
Here is the data to the 128 assembly seats
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_kWcLeAa4CEUWlMNFBkc25oU1E/view?usp=sharing
A cursory look at the data clearly reveals that BJP gained vote share in excess of the 2014 Lok Sabha election in 39 seats while it lost vote share in a whopping 89 seats. But here is the real disturbing trend. 95% of the 39 seats where they gained vote share are all in parliamentary districts where they lost in the Lok Sabha Polls (BJP won 22/30 seats they contested in the Lok Sabha 2014 polls). Most of the vote share gain that has been made has been from the assembly segments in those 8 Lok Sabha seats which they lost (Araria, Banka, Bhagalpur, Katihar, Kishanganj, Purnia, Madhepura and Supaul). They have lost significant vote share in almost all of the assembly segments which belong to the 22 Lok Sabha seats that they won in the Modi wave of 2014.
So irrespective of the JDU-RJD alliance, if BJP as a party is losing 10-15% vote share in Gaya or Patna, there is something seriously wrong. It is quite possible that the voters in those seats where BJP won in LS 2014 are very disappointed and the voters in seats where BJP lost in LS 2014 feel that they should not judge BJP until they have been elected to victory in their own seat.
There is possibility that the reservation issue took its toll in the 1st 4 phases and it was only by the last phase when the prime minister stepped to clear the air on the issue. Most of the seats where BJP lost in LS 2014 and where they have gained in this assembly election lie in Phase 5.
Another possibility is that the seats where BJP gained vote share in this 2015 election are all in the eastern muslim dominated areas of Bihar (Phase 5). It is quite possible that the reservation issue did not resonate much with voters living in such polarized areas they vote even more overwhelmingly for BJP after seeing the possibility of a Lalu Prasad Yadav led RJD return.
The last possibility is that of overwhelming preference for Nitish Kumar as the Chief Minister. Even during the peak of the Modi wave in the run up to the Lok Sabha polls in 2014, Nitish was consistently polling above him when the specific question of preference for Chief Minister was asked to the Bihar electorate. So it was clear even at that time that the average Bihar resident wanted Modi to be in Delhi and let Nitish run Patna. To add to this equation, BJP refrained from projecting any potential chief ministerial candidate in the run up to the assembly election. BJP’s strategy was to avoid any internal tussle within the party and in the process avoid projecting a CM from a particular caste in the fear of antagonizing other factions. This strategy seems to have backfired badly at least on the face of it.
While the cause could have been any of the above or even a combination of the above, a series of polls conducted before the elections indicated a close race. The result was very different. This leads us to believe that something drastic has happened right before the polls and that is where extra needle of suspicion points towards the comments made by Mohan Bhagwat on reservation. The media lapped it up happily and BJP/RSS made no effort to counter it immediately. It was probably too late when they tried to douse the fire.
Whatever be the root cause, the reality is that BJP has lost significant vote share among voters in those parliamentary districts, which rooted for BJP/Modi in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
This scribe has in the past rooted for a run-off election concept to avoid appeasement based politics in India. A run-off election is a concept where there are two rounds of election. The 1st round proceeds like our standard “first post the past” system following which the winner and the runner up have a 2nd round if no candidate secures a outright majority (>50% vote) in the 1st round. This will be implemented at each parliamentary seat in the Lok Sabha polls and at each assembly seats for state level polls.
In the process of forming coalitions to align against the BJP, the opposition in India is naturally gravitating towards a two party system, or a two party option. While this may hurt BJP in the short run, it is very good for India in the long run where the voter has a clear indication of where his/her vote is going. The current system leads to lot of backroom wiggling after the polls which in many cases distort the voter mandate, just like the Delhi 2013 election. While India does not need to officially move to a 2 party system, this kind of natural coalescing is beneficial and gives the voter a clear picture of things to come.
The BJP on its end will have to analyze in depth as to what went wrong instead of just passing the buck or blaming Mohan Bhagwat.
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