INDIA IN TRANSITION. The maths of BJP’s electoral win

In the post-mortem of the general election, much has been made of the fact that the Bhartiya Janata Party won 282 seats, 52 per cent of the contestable seats, on just 31 per cent of the vote-share. By contrast, in 2009, the Congress had got just 206 seats, 38 per cent of the contestable seats, on 29 per cent of the vote-share. What explains this great disparity in the number of seats won, given similar vote shares?

At the outset it should be clear that in a multi-party first-past-the-post system, discrepancies between vote-shares and seat-shares are the norm, not the exception. In the last UP Assembly election, the Samajwadi Party won 224 seats with 29.15 per cent of the vote while the Bahujan Samaj Party won just 80 seats with 25.91 per cent of the vote. A closer look at the numbers not only explains the BJP’s ability to convert vote percentage into winning seats, it also sheds light on the electorate’s attitudes.

This analysis uses two concepts that are helpful in examining electoral outcomes: strike rate and competitive party. The strike rate of a party refers to the proportion of constituencies the party wins for a given set of constituencies, and a party is deemed to be competitive in a constituency if it is one of the top two vote-getters in that constituency.

The BJP contested a total of 428 constituencies, winning in 282 and accounting for a 66 per cent strike rate. However, there is considerable variation in the strike rate by region and party opponent.

The BJP’s seats are regionally concentrated. Six states — Bihar, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh — contributed 194 seats, constituting 69 per cent of the total number of seats won by the BJP. The strike rate was an incredible 91 per cent among seats that it contested (it did not contest every seat in Bihar or Maharashtra due to pre-poll alliances), but these contested seats comprised only 39 per cent of the contestable seats in the election.

The BJP was particularly successful in head-to-head battles with the Congress. Consider the constituencies in which the BJP and Congress were the top two vote-getters. There were 189 such constituencies and the BJP won 166 of them with a whopping strike rate of 88 per cent. In contrast, the BJP’s strike rate was even (49 per cent) in the remainder of the constituencies. All told, the BJP and Congress were in a head-to-head battle in 35 per cent of contestable constituencies, but these constituencies yielded 59 per cent of the total number of seats won by the BJP.

Outside of head-to-head battles with the Congress, and outside of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh (where the strike rate was 85 per cent), the BJP contested in 144 constituencies, but was competitive in only 56 of them. Even when it was competitive, the BJP had a lower strike rate — 63 per cent. In short, the numbers demonstrate that the success of the BJP in this election was due to its spectacular strike rate against Congress and its remarkable performance in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. These two categories account for 247 of the 282 BJP seats won.

How does this help explain the BJP’s ability to convert vote-share into seats? The answer lies in the strike rates. When the BJP was contesting head-to-head against the Congress, or when it was in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, its strike rate was extremely high. Outside of this, however, the BJP wasn’t particularly competitive. In other words, there were very few BJP “wasted votes”. When people voted for the BJP, it was very likely they did so in constituencies where the BJP won.

The BJP had a hard time breaking into states with strong regional parties and regional identities. This may seem like an odd statement given that the BJP did so well in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, but it had been part of the ruling coalition in Bihar until June 2013 and was the largest party in UP the 1999 Lok Sabha election (and has had double digit seat share since). In this sense, it was not “breaking into” these states.

To understand this point, consider West Bengal where the BJP received its highest ever vote-share, at 17 per cent. The BJP contested in all 42 constituencies and won just 2 seats (one of which it had also won in 2009). It was competitive in just 3 other constituencies. Not only did the BJP fail to convert its vote-share into seats, it wasn’t even close. Nonetheless, given the weakening of the CPI(M) in West Bengal, the BJP may emerge as the main opposition to the ruling TMC.

Similar patterns were seen in states with strong regional identities. The BJP won just 3 of the 12 seats it contested in Andhra Pradesh, 1 of 8 in Tamil Nadu, 1 of 21 in Odisha, and none of the 18 seats it contested in Kerala. These five major states yielded a strike rate of just 7 per cent for the party.

In a pre-election analysis conducted by the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI), using surveys from the Lok Foundation, we argued that the major concerns in the electorate — economic growth, corruption and inflation — centred around the larger macro economy. These concerns, packaged with the charisma of Narendra Modi, generated a cogent, powerful national campaign.

The Congress, on the other hand, found itself in no man’s land, unable to find a solid national identity and too enfeebled in the parts of India with strong regional identities to mount much of a challenge. Congress’ attempt to paint itself as the party of welfare benefits never really took off; voters understood that most welfare programmes also require coordination and state-level implementation, and myriad corruption scandals served to chip away at the credibility of the party in delivering the benefits.

Those constituencies in which the BJP went head-to-head against the Congress served as a referendum on the parties’ respective national visions. The spectacular strike rate of the BJP in these constituencies suggests that the Congress never really developed one.

It will be interesting to speculate where the parties go from here. As the data suggests, it will be difficult for the BJP to seriously break into states with strong regional identities. Will it devote significant resources toward this effort or instead, consolidate its power in the places it has already swept? The Congress party, for its part, needs to completely reinvent itself, address its leadership dilemma, and develop a more compelling national vision.

The BJP emerged as the only party with a persuasive national vision but, as its vote-share reveals, this does not mean it is representative of all of India. Apart from the apprehensions of India’s Muslim community, the data shows that significant swathes of India were relatively unaffected by the ‘Modi wave’. One of the new government’s challenges will be to address the obstacles generated by this regional polarisation. Much will depend on the personal equations that the Prime Minister establishes with the regional leaderships. This will likely be relatively easier with Tamil Nadu, somewhat less with Odisha, and perhaps most difficult with West Bengal.

The writer is a doctoral candidate in the department of political science at Columbia University. This article is by special arrangement with the Center for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania

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