India 2014 - Results

[jaichind]

This is a list of challenges I see for PM Modi
1) Restraining local-level Hindu nationalist activism will be key challenge for the new government, especially in the early stages.  Since his second term in Gujarat (2007 onwards) and during his general election campaign, Modi and the BJP have prioritized economic development rather than Hindu nationalism as their core political agenda.  This alienated the leadership of the RSS, which spearheads a vast network of Hindu nationalist organisations.  However, during the election campaign, Hindu nationalist themes brought the BJP considerable success in certain key local areas -- most notably UP, Assam and Bihar  The temptation to pursue these themes could prove irresistible, despite short-tem security risks and longer-term problems posed by religious polarization.  Another point of concern will be how far Modi now re-accommodates himself to the RSS and its agenda, where the position in -- and influence exercised over -- the government by BJP president Rajnath Singh could be critical.  Singh acts as interlocutor between the party and the RSS, and Modi will be under pressure to placate Singh and maintain his ties with the RSS.
2) Removing hurdles to infrastructure investment will turn, in part, on the willingness of regional leaders to liberalize land regulation.  A key priority would be to focus on infrastructure, where over 140 major projects have stalled in the last two years.  The outgoing UPA government passed a Land Acquisition Act to overcome one of the most serious hurdles, but land policy is controlled by state governments and cross-party cooperation will be necessary to ease constraints on industrial land acquisition.
3) Absent a change in RBI leadership, conflict between fiscal and monetary authorities could rise over monetary policy.  The new government will not wish to replace RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, who commands international confidence.  However, Rajan repeatedly highlighted his unwillingness to prioritise growth over inflation control to outgoing Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram, raising interest rates despite the economic slowdown. Should Rajan stay in office, conflict between the fiscal and monetary authorities could reappear.
4) Even with its NDA allies, the BJP currently holds only 64 seats in the 245-seat upper house, which has the power to amend and delay legislation.  To increase investment flows, Modi may press forward with certain privatizations -- such as of public sector banks, where the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is already calling for rules requiring 51% state ownership to be revised.  However, further privatization in sectors such as railways and airports will encounter resistance from powerful trade unions and opponents of foreign investment within the BJP and its allied organisations.
5) The BJP does not govern most of the regional states, making cross-party co-operation necessary to pass legislation and implement policy goals.  The resistance of state governments to many policies of the outgoing UPA government was a significant factor in its failure. 
6) Several senior BJP leaders who ran its 1998-2004 governments regarded Modi as an 'outsider' -- and his association with the 2002 violence as a political liability.  For example, former BJP External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh resigned from the Modi-led BJP.  Former Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani and party leader in the lower house Sushma Swaraj resisted Modi's rise and largely dissociated themselves from his campaign.  However, now that he has won, both have indicated expectations of significant office.  Foreign relations is one area where Modi may need to make his peace with the 'old guard' and, if Jaitley goes to finance, Swaraj may be asked to become the 'acceptable face' of the BJP for the world.
7) Related to #1, Article 370 of the Indian Constitution which gives special status to J&K has always been opposed by RSS and BJP.  Same with the agenda of a uniform civil code which is meant to replace the personal laws based on the scriptures and customs of each major religious community in the country.   Now that BJP has a majority on its own the RSS and BJP core supporters will expected the BJP to act on these two long standing BJP demands.  Problem is doing either will provoke significant Muslim reaction and perhaps provoke Muslim extremism.

[Gustaf]

This is not based on any proper analysis at all but I get a feeling that there weren't that many really close marginal seats in this election. Is that just my imagination?

You are right, out of 543 seats, 95 were won by a margin of 5% or less.  In 2009 196 seats were won by a margin of 5% of less and in 2004 151 were won by a margin of 5% of less.

Any idea why? Because of BJP overreach in it's good areas?

Also, looking at Al's great list it's kind of striking how much this was an INC loss. They lost seats all over the place, not just to BJP. On that note, the polls seem to have predicted BJP more accurately, while INC ended up doing even worse than the polls showed, no? I remember the talk as being about "omg, INC may actually drop into double digits" and then they fell to like half of that in the election.

[jaichind]

This is not based on any proper analysis at all but I get a feeling that there weren't that many really close marginal seats in this election. Is that just my imagination?

You are right, out of 543 seats, 95 were won by a margin of 5% or less.  In 2009 196 seats were won by a margin of 5% of less and in 2004 151 were won by a margin of 5% of less.

Any idea why? Because of BJP overreach in it's good areas?

Also, looking at Al's great list it's kind of striking how much this was an INC loss. They lost seats all over the place, not just to BJP. On that note, the polls seem to have predicted BJP more accurately, while INC ended up doing even worse than the polls showed, no? I remember the talk as being about "omg, INC may actually drop into double digits" and then they fell to like half of that in the election.

Most of it is because of the large leads BJP won over INC in bipolar BJP/INC states in Northern India.  The AIADMK sweep of TN, BJD of Orissa, BJP sweep of UP, TRS sweep of Telangana, TMC sweep of WB, and to some extent BJP sweep of Jkharhand all had large leads because of splintered opposition.  Bihar, AP, Karnataka and Kerela were all much closer.

[homelycooking]

Does anyone know if census data (population, income, language, etc.) is available broken down by constituency, either at the federal or State level? Is there a way that constituency figures could be arrived at or computed?

[jaichind]

Some interesting numbers from various states where there are alliances or are multipolar

Telegana
TRS       34.9%   11
UPA       25.7%    2
NDA       22.8%    2
YSRCP      4.5%   1
AIMIM       3.5%   1

AP
NDA       48.0%   17
YSRCP    45.7%    8
UPA         2.9%     0

WB
TMC      39.8%   34
Left       30.1%    2
NDA       17%       2
UPA         9.6%    4

Kerela   
UPA      42.5%   10
Left      40.5%   10
NDA      10.9%     0

TN
AIADMK  44.9%  37
DMK+     27.2%   0
NDA       18.7%    2
UPA         4.4%    0

Orissa
BJD        44.8%  20
NDA        21.9%   1
UPA        26.4%   0

Maharashtra
NDA       51.7%  42
UPA        35.0%   6

Bihar       
NDA       39.5%  31
UPA        30.3%   7
JD(U)+    17.2%   2

UP
NDA       43.6%   73
SP          22.3%    5
BSP        19.8%    0
UPA         8.5%     2

Assam
NDA       38.7%     7
UPA       32.1%     3
AUDF     15.0%     3
AGP        3.9%      0 

Karnataka
NDA        43.4%  17
UPA        41.2%   9
JD(S)       11.1%  2

Punjab
NDA       35.2%    6
UPA        33.2%    3
AAP        24.5%    4

Delhi
NDA        46.6%   7
AAP         33.1%   0
UPA        15.2%   0

Jharkhand
NDA       40.7%  12
UPA        22.9%   2
JVM        12.3%   0

Haryana
NDA      40.9%    7
INLD     24.4%    2
UPA      23.0%    1

Pondicherry
NDA        35.6%  1
UPA        27.2%  0
AIADMK   18.5% 0
DMK          8.4%  0

J&K
UPA        34.3%  0
NDA        32.6%  3
PDP        23.1%  3

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There's some real LOLFPTP stuff going on there.

[Gustaf]

There's some real LOLFPTP stuff going on there.

This in particular:

J&K
UPA        34.3%  0
NDA        32.6%  3
PDP        23.1%  3

wtf

[jaichind]

There's some real LOLFPTP stuff going on there.

This in particular:

J&K
UPA        34.3%  0
NDA        32.6%  3
PDP        23.1%  3

wtf

This is not strange at all.  J&K has 6 seats.  3 are Muslim dominated seats (in Kashmir), 2 are Hindu dominated seats (in Jannu) and 1 Buddhist/Muslim mixed seat (Ladakh).  In theory the best name for J&K should be Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh (of course as a Chinese I hold to the position that part of Ladakh is really legally Chinese territory but that is a different debate.)

UPA is INC+JKN.  INC has strength in Jannu and Ladakh while JKN has strength in Kashmir and Ladakh.  NDA is really BJP which is strong in Hindu Jannu and has some strength in Ladakh but obviously is nowhere in Kashmir.  PDP is a Muslim dominated party and is strong in Kashmir but nowhere in Jannu and Ladakh.  So  BJP got almost nothing in Kasmir and PDP got almost nothing in Jannu. But in Jannu and Ladakh BJP beat INC and in Kashmir PDP beat JKN.  So net affect is UPA has more vote but no seats. 

If it was not for the Hindu-Muslim animosity in J&K one can argue that BJP and PDP are natural allies.  In Punjab that is what too place in NDA where BJP and SAD has an alliance.  BJP is strong in Hindu areas and SAD is strong in Sihk areas so there is no collisions/disputes in terms of seat sharing.

[jaichind]

Of course we also have the more standard INC/BJP 1-on-1 battleground states that BJP swept.

Chhattisgarh
BJP      49.7%   10
INC      39.1%    1

Goa
BJP      54.1%    2
INC      37.0%    0

Gujarat
BJP      60.1%   26
INC+    33.5%    0

HP
BJP      53.9%    4
INC      41.1%    0

MP
BJP      54.8%  27
INC      35.4%   2

Rajasthan
BJP      55.6%  25
INC     30.7%    0

Uttarakhand
BJP     55.9%    5
INC     34.4%    0

[Gustaf]

I understood that that is what happened but I still found it rather striking that you actually can end up like that. Pretty extreme polarization.

[jaichind]

This is not based on any proper analysis at all but I get a feeling that there weren't that many really close marginal seats in this election. Is that just my imagination?

Also note that this is more of a function of the fractured nature of the vote.  In 2014 239 out of 543 seats were won with a margin LESS than the votes won by the candidate in third place.  True in 2009 that number was 325.  But in 2004 it was 237.  So the larger margins is more of a function of the diffusion of of votes for the non-winning candidate than the winner actually winning more votes.  Makes sense as I been pointed out that NDA only got 38.45% of the vote which in previous elections would not even make it to majority let alone 336 seats.

[jaichind]

Jitan Ram Manjh who is a Mahadaliit (or the lowest of the Dalits) is new CM of Bihar.  This is just the first step of Nitish Kumar's plan to get himself out of the political crisis he is in.  He hopes to quell the anti-Kumar rebellion in JD(U) and prepare for a political comeback in the 2015 Bihar assembly elections.  There are now talk of a grand alliance of JD(U) RJD and INC.  For sure mathematics now dictates that a JD(U) RJD rapprochement might be possible after 20 years of split.  JD(U) RJD battles was based on the premise that BJP and INC are secondary players in Bihar.  This is shown not to be true for BJP.

In UP if the BJP continues to be as strong as the most recent election indicates it might trigger an alliance that was thought impossible, SP-BSP.  Remember that SP-BSP had an alliance in 1993 in the backdrop of the Ram Temple movement and the threat that the BJP will become the dominate political player in UP.  That ended not to be true as while the BJP continue to dominate Lok Shaba elections in UP until 1999, its strength in assembly elections never reached its 1991 peak.  What the threat coming back again, old enemies SP and BSP might end up coming together to stop BJP in 2017 UP assembly elections.  Of course if Modi stumbles and BJP fortunes decline then this alliance will not come to pass.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Talking of Punjab, does anyone know why the BJP runs in Amritsar rather than SAD?

[jaichind]

Talking of Punjab, does anyone know why the BJP runs in Amritsar rather than SAD?

To be frank I do not know.  It is a place one would think SAD should run candidates in as opposed to BJP.  The BJS, the ancestor party of the BJP, has a history of alliances with SAD going back to the 1960s, and even back then the BJS would run candidates in Amritsar as opposed to SAD.  I would surmise that BJS/BJP are stronger in urban areas and SAD is mostly a rural party of Jat Sikh farmers.  Amristar is 30% Hindu so if BJS/BJP could get that vote and appeal to urban Sikh they might be a better fit than SAD. Also Amritsar has a lot of refugees from Pakistan Punjab during the partition and BJS/BJP has better anti-Pakistan credentials than SAD to appeal to this group of Sikhs and Hindus. 

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Although until this year they at least ran a Sikh candidate (former international cricketer, television personality and one time murderer Navjot Singh Sidhu), rather than a Hindu party apparatchik.

[jaichind]

Although until this year they at least ran a Sikh candidate (former international cricketer, television personality and one time murderer Navjot Singh Sidhu), rather than a Hindu party apparatchik.

Correct. BJP ran Arun Jaitley who is pretty high and well respected up in the BJP and looking for a safe seat.  The BJP Punjab unit convinced Arun Jaitley to run in Amristar saying that it was lock as the BJP has won Amristar even during bad years and it was clear that 2014 was going to be a good year for the BJP.  Arun Jaitley lost to former Punjab CM and INC candidate Amarinder Singh who turned the race into a Sikh vs Hindu race and beat Arun Jaitley in one of the few bright spots for the INC.

[Sbane]

Although until this year they at least ran a Sikh candidate (former international cricketer, television personality and one time murderer Navjot Singh Sidhu), rather than a Hindu party apparatchik.

That shouldn't be surprising. After all Sikhs are one of the most pro BJP voting groups.

[Famous Mortimer]

Jitan Ram Manjh who is a Mahadaliit (or the lowest of the Dalits) is new CM of Bihar.  This is just the first step of Nitish Kumar's plan to get himself out of the political crisis he is in.  He hopes to quell the anti-Kumar rebellion in JD(U) and prepare for a political comeback in the 2015 Bihar assembly elections.  There are now talk of a grand alliance of JD(U) RJD and INC.  For sure mathematics now dictates that a JD(U) RJD rapprochement might be possible after 20 years of split.  JD(U) RJD battles was based on the premise that BJP and INC are secondary players in Bihar.  This is shown not to be true for BJP.

In UP if the BJP continues to be as strong as the most recent election indicates it might trigger an alliance that was thought impossible, SP-BSP.  Remember that SP-BSP had an alliance in 1993 in the backdrop of the Ram Temple movement and the threat that the BJP will become the dominate political player in UP.  That ended not to be true as while the BJP continue to dominate Lok Shaba elections in UP until 1999, its strength in assembly elections never reached its 1991 peak.  What the threat coming back again, old enemies SP and BSP might end up coming together to stop BJP in 2017 UP assembly elections.  Of course if Modi stumbles and BJP fortunes decline then this alliance will not come to pass.

Jitan Ram Manjh, the new JD(U) Chief Minister was also, up until very recently, a member of the RJD.

[jaichind]

Look at results across different states and they swing from 2009 one can begin to map out what took place.  This is hard because in many states the alliances have changed (Bihar, TN, WB, Assam, AP, Telengana, Haryana etc etc) and some states are very elastic (Rajasthan) or very inelastic (HP) or the political movement of the state is in an opposite direction from India at large (Karnataka, Chhattisgarh) or is moving in the same direction but special factors makes it extreme (Gujarat, UP) or new political parties has changed the voting pattern (Delhi, Punjab)

I ended up picking 3 states without these factors to map out what took place.  I picked Orissa, MP, and Kerela

Orissa
BJD        44.8%   (+3.1%)
NDA        21.9%  (+5.0%)
UPA        26.4%   (-6.3%)

MP
BJP      54.8%   (+11.4%)
INC      35.4%    ( -4.7%)


Kerela    
UPA      42.5%   (-5.2%)
Left      40.5%   (+1.4%)
NDA      10.9%   (+4.5%)


One can see from this that what took place was BOTH a move toward BJP due to the Modi affect AS WELL AS as tactical voting against INC.  In Orissa and Kerela, NDA picked up around 5% from 2009 as part of the pro-Modi wave, but the anti-INC tactical voter went to Left Front and BJD as they are seen as the stronger of the anti-INC parties.  In MP, there is the same 5% swing toward BJP due to Modi PLUS another 5% of anti-INC tactical voting since BJP is the strongest non-INC party in the state.  This seems to be why the places where BJP competes with INC 1-on-1 seems to have greater swings toward NDA as the anti-INC tactical votes has no place to go but BJP whereas in Orissa it went to BJD and in Kerala it went to Left Front.


Then we have states where political changes relative to 2009 is either opposite of the all India trend (like Karnataka) or much stronger than the all India trend (Gujarat for obvious reasons but also UP where the communal riots and poor record of the SP government made the pro-BJP movement even greater.)

UP
NDA       43.6%   (+22.5)
SP          22.3%   (-0.5%)
BSP        19.8%   (-7.6%)
UPA         8.5%    (-9.9%)

Karnataka
NDA        43.4%  (+1.8%)
UPA        41.2%   (+3.6%)
JD(S)+     11.2%  (-2.6%)

Chhattisgarh
BJP      49.7%   (+4.7%)
INC      39.1%   (+1.8%)

Gujarat
BJP      60.1%     (+13.6)
INC+    33.5%    ( -9.9%)

Even here we the same thing taking place.  In Gujart there is at 10% toward BJP due to Modi plus another 4% as part of the anti-INC tactical voter.  In Karnataka INC is improving from 2009 but the anti-INC tactical vote went to BJP as opposed to JD(S) since BJP is considered stronger of the anti-INC parties.  Chhattisgarh is actually trending INC but the anti-INC tactial voting helped BJP and stopping INC from picking up seats.  In UP we had the Modi wave of 10% plus another 12% anti-INC tactical vote toward BJP.  BSP was hurt but this because its was considered weaker of the anti-INC parties and its association with INC toward the end of UPA-II by propping it up.

In states which are very elastic and inelastic we see the same thing but how elastic the state is defined the size of the Modi wave and anti-INC tactical voting.

HP
BJP      53.9%   (+4.4%)
INC      41.1%   (-4.5%)

Rajasthan
BJP      55.6%   (+19.0%)
INC     30.7%   (-16.5%)

Uttarakhand
BJP      55.9%   (+22.1%)
INC      34.4%  (  -8.7%)
BSP        4.8%  (-10.4%)


Here, the Modi wave plus the elastic nature of Rajasthan and Uttarakhand produced massive swings and some extra anti-INC tactical voting on top of that.  HP is inelastic and there does not seem to signs of anti-INC tactical voting mainly because HP is already so polarize between BJP and INC historically.  

One can also look at some of the other states where alliances changed to try to get an idea how large the Modi wave was.

WB
TMC      39.8%  
Left       30.1%    (-13.2%)
NDA       17.0%    (+10.9%)
UPA         9.6%    

TMC+UPA in 2014 was 49.5% versus 47.7% when TMC was part of UPA.  The NDA clearly got a pro-Modi wave swing but also benefited from anti-INC, anti-TMC and anti-Left tactical voting.  TMC also clearly gained from Left and took some of the anti-INC tactical voting as well.  Anti-INC voting does not seem as strong in WB.

TN
AIADMK  44.9%  
DMK+     27.2%  
NDA       18.7%    
UPA         4.4%    

DMK+ and UPA in 2009 together got 42.5% but down to 31.6% in 2014.  The anti-INC and anti-DMK trend seems quite strong here mostly due to the Sri Lanka Tamil issue plus the various scams by DMK minsters in UPA-II.  The AIADMK clearly got most if not all of the anti-INC vote and Modi did not seem to have that much of an impact in TN in getting votes.  The way we know that is to look at the vote shares of the NDA which is DMDK+BJP+PMK+MDMK.  In 2009 DMDK and BJP ran separately and got 10.1% and 2.3% respectively.  IN 2006 assembly elections MDMK ran by itself and got 6%.  PMK's vote share is estimated at around 5%.  So adding them up one ges 23.3%.  Of course it in an alliance it is not reasonable to assume all these vote shares will merge perfectly, in fact it will not.  But NDA getting 18.7% is not that impressive given the vote bases of the component parties.  All Modi can get credit for is holding this alliance together and not losing vote share.  AIADMK clearly got the anti-INC vote share which was her plan all along.  Stalin who leads DMK clearly saw this coming and insisted on breaking ties with INC to try to head it off.  He had the right idea but it did not work.

I think JD(U) in Bihar saw the same trends and broke ties with BJP to try to harvest this anti-INC vote as it saw itself as the stronger of the anti-INC parties.  But the Modi wave raised the BJP strength to be above that of the JD(U) and captured the anti-INC vote.  The anti-BJP vote was split but mostly went to UPA so JD(U) was crushed from both sides.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yes, 15% of the vote statewide isn't nothing, but it isn't going to win you many seats when you're out on your own.

[jaichind]

Lalu Yadav's RJD to support JD(U) in Bihar assembly floor test for new CM.  New grand alliance in Bihar forming.



Old rivals since 1994 Lalu Yadav and Nitish Kumar together again after 20 years.

I saw this coming a few days ago.

As for what INC should do, just like the DPJ after the 2012 Japan elections, there is no time to waste.  There must be a generational shift to younger leaders and party cannot just count on the Gandhi's the deliver the votes.  I would also push for alliances with TMC in WB, DMK in TN, BJD in Orissa, try to go for a grand alliance of RJD JD(U) and INC in Bihar, alliance with AUDF in Assam, alliance with AAP in Delhi/Punjab/Harayana, alliance with BSP in MP/Rajasthan/Chattisgrah, andalliance with JD(S) in Karnataka.  There are no easy options in UP.  The best I can think of is alliance with BSP but that is fraught with great danger.

 

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Although until this year they at least ran a Sikh candidate (former international cricketer, television personality and one time murderer Navjot Singh Sidhu), rather than a Hindu party apparatchik.

That shouldn't be surprising. After all Sikhs are one of the most pro BJP voting groups.

Is this primarily an outgrowth of the bad blood between the Sikh population and the Gandhis or are there other reasons for it as well?

[moderatevoter]

I've always thought that was a the main reason for it - Congress's role in 1984.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Correct. BJP ran Arun Jaitley who is pretty high and well respected up in the BJP and looking for a safe seat.  The BJP Punjab unit convinced Arun Jaitley to run in Amristar saying that it was lock as the BJP has won Amristar even during bad years and it was clear that 2014 was going to be a good year for the BJP.  Arun Jaitley lost to former Punjab CM and INC candidate Amarinder Singh who turned the race into a Sikh vs Hindu race and beat Arun Jaitley in one of the few bright spots for the INC.

Yeah, I'm a little surprised that they didn't realise there was a chance that that might happen. Would have thought it would have made more sense to have him run in Gurdaspur?

[jaichind]

Although until this year they at least ran a Sikh candidate (former international cricketer, television personality and one time murderer Navjot Singh Sidhu), rather than a Hindu party apparatchik.

That shouldn't be surprising. After all Sikhs are one of the most pro BJP voting groups.

Is this primarily an outgrowth of the bad blood between the Sikh population and the Gandhis or are there other reasons for it as well?

Not really.  BJS and SAD has had alliances going back to the 1960s.  What took place in 1984 did not help.  On the other hand 1984 did not stop INC from having significant but not majority support in Sikh part of Punjab.  But INC is competitive there.