Assembly elections: Why BJP should worry about 2019?

On the first anniversary of Rahul Gandhi’s leadership as Congress President, the Congress Party has secured victory in the Hindi heartland states and unseated the BJP in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. These elections were the last polls before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, and there are far reaching implications from the mandate the voters have given to the Congress Party.

At the outset, examining the results from the 3 Hindi heartland states in aggregate displays the sweeping mandate given to the Congress Party. The Congress has secured a total of 281 seats in ‘18, an increase of 140% from its tally in ’13. On the flipside, the BJP has contracted nearly 50% going from 376 seats in ’13 down to 197 seats.

Looking forward, the outcome of the elections in these 3 Hindi heartland states are definite predictors of the 2019 Lok Sabha results. MP, RJ and CH are unique as the state elections are always 6 months prior to the Lok Sabha elections. In the last 3 Lok Sabha elections, the party that has won the state elections in these states has gone on to win these states in the subsequent Lok Sabha election too.

For example, the BJP won the 2008 Vidhan Sabha election in Madhya Pradesh and also won Madhya Pradesh in the 2009 Lok Sabha election, despite the Congress party winning the overall Lok Sabha election in 2009. There is a 100% correlation in Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections in the three Hindi heartland states.

Why is this important? The BJP won 62 seats from these three states in the 2014 Lok Sabha election. Now, the BJP has lost all these states. If history were to repeat itself for the 4th time, then the Congress party should win these states decisively in the upcoming 2019 Lok Sabha election.

Looking deeper into each state, there are further startling insights that can be garnered.

Madhya Pradesh

Madhya Pradesh was an extremely close election, with the results going down to the wire and the Congress emerging victorious to beat the BJP by 114 to 109 seats. This was despite the BJP receiving a marginally higher vote share. The BJP garnered 48,000 more votes than the Congress, representing a vote share differential of 0.1%.

The key for the Congress’ victory here was tied to the targeting of “swing” assembly constituency seats and emphasizing the effectiveness of voter mobilization efforts. The Congress War Room had identified 114 “swing” seats, out of which it won 65. This represents a strike rate of 57%, which turned out to be the difference in the election.

The Congress’ performance was also notable for strong performance across the entire state – gains were not isolated to specific regions or types of voters. In the 6 distinct regions that constitute MP, the Congress increased vote share in each region and was also able to increase its seat tally in 5 of the 6 regions compared to 2013. Congress also substantially increased its strike rate in both rural and urban areas, winning 50% (vs. 29%) in rural areas and 48% (vs. 6%) in urban areas from the prior election. The urban areas performance is remarkable, moving from single digits to the near halfway mark.

This bodes extremely well as the Congress looks forward to 2019, as the Congress is able to convert votes to seats and win both crucial urban and rural voters.

Rajasthan

The mandate in Rajasthan was strong for Congress, with INC winning 99 seats and over 1.8 lakh more votes than BJP. It is important to reflect on the state of the Congress after the 2013 election, when it had secured just 21 seats and garnered 33% of the vote share.

In 2018, INC received 39% of vote share, which is over 6 percentage points above the previous elections’ tally and makes Rajasthan the state where the Congress had the highest increase in vote share.

The swing in seats is stark – Congress increased its tally by 78 seats while BJP lost 89 seats. Similar to Madhya Pradesh, the Congress was also able to convert votes into seats more effectively than the BJP. Though Congress only garnered 0.5% higher vote share, it won 26 more seats than BJP. The gains and strong performance were across all sections of the state, as the Congress performed better than the BJP in General, SC and ST seats.

The Congress’ performance was especially strong in SC seats, where it had a 58% win rate. Examining performance geographically, the Congress highly outperformed the BJP in rural areas where the INC win rate was 52% compared to BJP’s 33%. This bodes well for a national campaign, as India is still a largely rural country.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha election in Rajasthan, BJP had a whitewash and captured all 25 Lok Sabha seats of the state. Based purely on the results from this state election, the results would be a near 50/50 split with 12 for Congress and 13 for BJP. In one election, Congress has bounced back from its 2014 performance.

Chhattisgarh

The Congress has achieved a resounding victory in Chhattisgarh. The Congress Party has secured 68 seats and garnered 43% of the vote share, both of which are records as this is the highest seat count and vote share by any single party. The previous highest seat count was 49 seats by the BJP in 2013, which the Congress has increased by a big margin. The magnitude of the victory can also be judged by the fact that the vote share difference was a staggering 10%, compared to a mere 0.75% difference between the BJP and Congress in 2013. The Congress was especially proficient in its core section of ST seats, winning 24 out of 29 and 11 out of 12 in the Bastar region.

Going into this election, many were predicting that the Janata Congress Chhattisgarh Party (JCCP), led by ex-Congress Chief Minister Ajit Jogi, would eat into the Congress’ vote share. This has been proven false, as the Congress has actually increased its vote share by 2%. In fact, the JCCP has actually expanded at the expense of the BJP.

Looking forward to next year, we can predict a near rout for the BJP in Chhattisgarh in the national election. If this were a Lok Sabha election, Congress would have 10 Lok Sabha seats and BJP 1 – which is the exact opposite of the present situation. That is, the Congress party could wrest 9 Lok Sabha seats in Chhattisgarh away from the BJP’s 2014 tally.

Telangana

The results in Telangana were unexpected, as there was a strong TRS wave and the INC-TDP alliance were only able to garner 21 seats. Despite this, the INC-TDP alliance was the correct strategy to pursue, both in terms of ideology and electoral math.

On first examination, the INC-TDP alliance saw a vote share reduction of 8 percentage points, from 32% in 2018 to 40% in 2013, when INC and TDP competed alone. This 40% is split out as INC and TDP receiving 26% and 14% respectively. This is extremely important, as it indicates that there was reasonable vote transfer in the alliance and the joint unit received higher vote share than each individual party received in 2013.

Further, let us examine a world without a Congress and TDP alliance. In this scenario, it is highly likely that TRS would have reduced the vote share of both Congress and TDP. Hence, competing independently, would the combined seat tally of Congress and TDP exceeded the alliances’ 21 seats?

The final set of elections before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls have proven that the Congress Party is an electoral force to be reckoned with and is steeply on the ascent. All signs point to the end of a Modi Sarkar and re ascension of the Congress Party, as decided by the will of the Indian people.