The Delhi Assembly elections have
thrown up a result that was surely beyond the expectation of even the most
optimistic Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supporter. Likewise, not even the most
pessimistic BJP supporter would have expected such annihilation by an upstart
party that had shot itself in the foot barely a year back and had come a cropper
in the Parliamentary elections of May 2014. Before the event, the battle seemed
so stacked against AAP that David versus Goliath might have seemed like a
battle among equals! There already are and there will be reams of analyses in
the coming days on this battle for Delhi. Let me add my bit here.
I am going to use some elements
of the median-voter theorem (MVT) of Public
Choice to analyse the Delhi elections. The MVT works best in the context of
a two party system where the vote-shares are divided between the two parties. The
median voter (located at the half-way mark, point m, in Figure 1 below) has 50% of voters to the left and 50% to the
right. If either political party is able to capture the median voter, it will
have 50% of the votes plus one more vote (that of the median voter) giving it a
simple majority, while the losing party will have just 50% of the votes. The
party which captures the median voter just wins the election by one vote.[i]
[ii]
In Figure 1, we contextualize the
MVT to the contest between the AAP and the Bhartiya Janata Party
(BJP), ignoring the other parties for the moment. To capture the median voter’s
vote, both AAP and BJP would be expected devise appropriate policies (or make
promises, as is the wont of political parties). Figure 1, in addition to the position of the median voter (m), also marks out
an area to the left of the vertical line at point a and to the right of the
vertical line at point b. The area created to the left of line at a represents the committed voters of AAP while the area to the
right of the vertical line at b represents the committed voters of
BJP. Committed voters will vote for the party of their choice irrespective of
policies proposed or promises made. These are assured or guaranteed votes as
far as the parties are concerned. The area between the vertical lines at a
and b represents swing voters. Such voters are swayed by policies proposed by the parties:
the party that offers more credible policies/promises will attract more of the
swing voters. Elections, therefore, are finally decided by swing voters. There
is, of course, interplay between the committed voters and swing voters. The
larger the number of committed voters that a party has, the less would be its
dependence on swing voters.[iii]
We need to, of course, remember
that there was an important third party in the fray as well, namely, the Indian
National Congress (INC). The vote shares of these three political parties –
AAP, BJP and INC – in the 2013 and 2015 elections were as follows (Table 1):
Table 1: Vote Shares in Delhi Elections
|
PARTY
|
2013
ELECTIONS[iv]
|
2015
ELECTIONS[v]
|
|
AAP
|
29.5 (28)
|
54.3 (67)
|
|
BJP
|
33.1 (31)
|
32.2 (3)
|
|
INC
|
24.6(8)
|
9.7(0)
|
|
OTHERS
|
12.8 (3)
|
3.8 (0)
|
|
Note: Numbers in brackets are seats won
|
||
For the 2015
elections, it was clear that there were two major players, the AAP and BJP and
that the INC and OTHERS would struggle to keep their share of votes intact. The
vote shares of the INC and OTHERS from the 2013 elections were, in a sense,
thrown into the pool of swing votes. Consequently, a significant part of the
combined vote share of INC plus OTHERS from the 2013 elections was up for grabs
between the AAP and BJP. As it transpired, INC and OTHERS were able to protect only
13.5% (9.7% + 3.8%) of their 2013 vote share, while almost 24% was captured by
AAP. None of this went to the BJP. The vote share of AAP rose to as high as
54.3% which was more than enough to capture the median voter in terms of Figure
1 (please see caveat in endnote ii).
Astounding as
the ability of the AAP was in capturing everything that the INC lost, even more
shocking was the complete inability of the BJP to attract any of these votes.
This was in complete contrast to the BJP’s performance in the 2014 Parliamentary
elections. The BJP had then managed to capture the entire reduction in vote
share of the INC (28.6% in 2009 down to 19.5% in 2014) at the all India level
and had increased its vote share from 18.8% (2009) to 31.3% (2014).[vi]
[vii]
What went so horribly wrong for the BJP in Delhi? The party that had won so spectacularly
in May 2014 as well as in the subsequent state elections had not just been
defeated, it had been annihilated. Is it mere disappointment with the BJP that
we are seeing among the voters of Delhi or are we seeing anger? This is a
legitimate question to ask since the same Delhi voters had given the BJP an
overwhelming victory in the Parliamentary elections barely a few months ago.
The party had then won all 7 parliamentary constituencies in Delhi and had polled
46.63% of votes.[viii]
The BJP’s
winning platform in May 2014 was its secular, development agenda. The vision of
a well-governed, corruption-free India that Modi painted had attracted large
numbers of swing voters – voters who may have voted for the INC in the 2009
elections. By the time the 2014 elections approached, these swing voters had
become disgusted with the scam-tainted INC and its directionless policy-making.
In the circumstances, such voters were willing to give Modi a chance. Swing
voters, by their very definition, did not subscribe to the religious agenda of
the BJP nor were they moved by calls for building the Ram temple. That was the
domain of the committed voters who would have voted for the BJP regardless of
Modi’s development agenda. The sharply focused campaign that Modi ran was good
enough to convince the swing voters that the destructive riots of 2002 were a
distant memory and the religious fundamentalists who had instigated these riots
would be held in check.
To be fair,
during the entire rule of the BJP so far, Modi and his team have remained true
to the development agenda that was promised even though there are no concrete
achievements to speak of as yet.[ix]
However, the support groups of the BJP, notably the RSS, have begun to run a
religious campaign that is deeply divisive. I have discussed this at length in
an earlier post.[x]
The earlier feeling that these acts were the handiwork of fringe groups has
given way to the apprehension that the fringe has moved centre-stage. Is it
possible to call the RSS a fringe group when every member of the BJP’s top
leadership has apprenticed with it and continue to have deep relationship with
it? Programmes like ghar-wapasi (reconversion of Muslims or Christians back to
Hinduism), provocative statements by elected members of the BJP, riots in parts
of Delhi and desecration of churches in Delhi have created unease among the swing
electorate who migrated to the BJP in the 2014 Parliamentary elections. This
has been coupled with deafening silence from the BJP leadership, notably Modi.
It may still be true that Modi has tried to curb such behavior away from the public
gaze. But how is the general public supposed to know that? Or, even worse, how
is the public to believe that Modi has cracked the whip in private, when the irresponsible
Sakshi Maharaj periodically suffers from verbal diarrhea.[xi]
It could well be argued that there is no need for Modi to “wash dirty linen in
public” but complete silence from a normally twitter-happy Prime Minister must seem
jarring.
Significant
events, such as riots in Trilokpuri and desecration of churches in different
parts of Delhi, did not, as far as I know, elicit a single tweet from the Prime Minister. The
minorities might well wonder if their hurt and insecurity is not even worth 140
characters on the PM’s Twitter account. The message going out by these silences
was that, either Modi agreed with the religious agenda of the RSS and other
yahoos, or he considered it a small price to pay to advance his development
agenda, or that he was not strong enough to hold in check these attacks on his
autonomy. Was it not exactly this same helplessness that led to the lampooning
and finally booting out of Manmohan Singh’s government? The problem then was
not a communalizing agenda as now, but acquiescing to corruption that swirled
around the then Prime Minister. Was it not also felt that there was a remote
control – Sonia and Rahul Gandhi[xii]
– that was setting the agenda for the Manmohan Singh government? Remember the
various claims made by Sanjaya Baru[xiii]
and Natwar Singh?[xiv]
How is the current situation, with RSS as the new remote control, any
different?
There must
have been reasons within the BJP which would have also contributed to the Delhi
debacle. The most obvious would be the imposition of Kiran Bedi as the chief
ministerial candidate. It is common knowledge that other aspirants to Delhi’s
chief ministerial position – Harshvardhan[xv]
and Satish Upadhyay[xvi]
– were peeved by this development. Perhaps the supporters of these worthies
were even more devastated at being denied the opportunity of getting on to the
gravy train once their leaders assumed chief ministership. Would these
disgruntled elements have actively worked against the BJP and Kiran Bedi? Bedi’s
husband certainly seems to think so.[xvii]
What seems certain is that enthusiasm of BJP cadres aligned with Bedi’s rivals
would definitely have waned. The lackluster campaigning by these cadres would
have made it much easier for AAP to capture the votes that were formerly
aligned with the INC. The AAP had also cleverly positioned itself as the more
reliable alternative to the INC as far as the minorities were concerned.
Importantly, the minorities found this positioning credible enough to switch their
votes from the INC to AAP and give the party victory in 67 out of the 70
assembly constituencies. As an aside to this stunning victory, I would like to
note that I am uncomfortable with such domination by any single party in a parliamentary
system. With no worthwhile opposition in sight in the Delhi assembly, there
will be no checks on the functioning of the AAP – something that is critical in
a democracy.
The results of
the Delhi elections are being projected as a referendum on the Modi government
at the Centre. I believe that is stretching the message of the Delhi results too
far. Of course, the way BJP acolytes are trying to protect their leader from the stigma of defeat is
amusing and shows that the more things change, the more they remain the same![xviii]
This was exactly how servile INC members had tried to shield Rahul and Sonia Gandhi
from the stigma of defeat in election after election. Be that as it may, it is
true that Modi and Amit Shah gave far too much importance to these elections –
after all what other message is conveyed by the rallies that Modi addressed, by
all Cabinet ministers being co-opted for campaigning and by mobilizing more
than a 100 MPs for election duty? Modi himself targeted Kejriwal and, very
distastefully, called him an anarchist and a Naxalite.[xix]
Given the blood on Naxalite hands, this was almost like calling Kejriwal a mass
murderer. For a person who was incensed when Sonia Gandhi used the phrase “maut
ka saudagar (merchant of death)”[xx]
using the Naxalite appellation for Kejriwal was as despicable.
Many analysts
are perhaps reading rather too much into the results of Delhi. I do not believe
that the message from Delhi suggests that people are tired of Modi’s government
at the Centre. The message is more like a rap on the knuckles, a sharp reminder
from the electorate that the BJP government needs to begin delivering on its
promises; that it needs to remain focused on the secular agenda of economic
development and governance; that it needs to shake off the religious vestiges
that always seem to cling to the party; and that it needs to hold in check the
rabid Hindutva elements as represented by the RSS and other obscurantist
groups. The question is whether the BJP government will heed this call and
confine itself to the straight and narrow path of development for all Indian
without discrimination or will it rush straight back into the welcoming embrace
of the religious fundamentalists? The BJP has a little over four years to
deliver before it faces the national electorate which may well pick up some
lessons from the voters in Delhi.
[i] https://www.cornellcollege.edu/politics/Reading%20-%20The%20Median%20Voter%20Theorem%20and%20its%20Applications%20-%20J.%20Poulette.pdf
[ii] Note that the MVT applies to each
election/constituency separately and not for a group of constituencies as, say,
in the Delhi assembly.
[iii] Of course, in a multi-party
situation, the situation is more complicated. For a party to win the elections,
all it needs a plurality – the largest percentage of votes polled which need
not cross 50%. Besides this in a first-past-the-post type of elections, as in
India, percentage of votes won has only an imperfect relation with number of
seats or constituencies won.
[iv] http://eci.nic.in/eci_main/StatisticalReports/AE2013/DelhiAE_2013_stat_report.pdf
[v] http://eci.nic.in/eci/eci.html
[vi] http://eci.nic.in/eci_main/archiveofge2009/Stats/VOLI/12_PerformanceOfNationalParties.pdf
[vii] http://eci.nic.in/eci_main/archiveofge2014/20%20-%20Performance%20of%20National%20Parties.pdf
[viii]
http://eci.nic.in/eci_main/archiveofge2014/17%20-%20State%20wise%20seat%20won%20and%20valid%20votes%20polled%20by%20political%20party.pdf
[ix]
It is true that inflation has been tamed but that is the success of monetary
policy of the RBI initiated way back during the UPA rule. Monetary policy is
characterized by notoriously long lags: see Kapur and Behera, 2012 (http://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/PublicationsView.aspx?id=14303).
Softening world crude oil prices have also helped lower inflation but, again,
the government can take no credit for it. As far as growth is concerned, the
picture is not yet clear and it has been made more confusing by the revised
data for GDP (http://www.livemint.com/Politics/xziKtmtOxBJntZb41p2hDL/India-GDP-seen-surging-74-in-data-that-has-puzzled-economi.html).
[x]
“The Art of Scoring Own Goals”, http://ajitkarnik.blogspot.ae/2015/01/the-art-of-scoring-own-goals.html
[xi] http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/pm-modi-will-have-to-be-a-boatman-warns-bjps-sakshi-maharaj-736673
[xii] http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/rahul-tears-ordinance--and-the-pm/1175119/
[xiii]
http://www.ndtv.com/elections-news/narendra-modi-uses-sanjaya-baru-book-to-target-sonia-gandhi-rahul-gandhi-557987
[xiv] http://www.indiatvnews.com/politics/national/natwar-singh-book-no-files-sent-to-sonia-gandhi-manmohan-singh-19218.html
[xv] http://www.ndtv.com/delhi-news/amid-reports-of-rift-harsh-vardhan-kiran-bedi-present-united-front-730032
[xvi] http://zeenews.india.com/news/delhi/dissent-in-bjp-over-parachute-cm-kiran-bedi-widens-satish-upadhyay-heckled_1533498.html
[xvii]
http://www.ndtv.com/elections-news/bjp-cadre-failed-to-support-kiran-bedi-says-her-husband-738515
[xviii]
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-maharashtra-cm-devendra-fadnavis-says-delhi-debacle-not-pm-narendra-modi-s-loss-2060106
[xix]
See the following for a very good discussion of these issues: http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/vKiSC1MsJSYEakFVgT9pGN/Modi-Kejriwal-Naxals-and-Vedic-anarchism.html
[xx] http://www.firstpost.com/politics/modi-slams-sonia-gandhi-for-inciting-people-of-gujarat-550665.html
