Five Trends Shaping India’s Voting Landscape
Hundreds of millions of Indians will take part in the largest
organized democratic exercise ever recorded in the spring of 2014,
barring the collapse of the ruling United Progressive Alliance
government led by the Indian National Congress or a move by Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh to call an early general election. If all goes
according to plan, by June India will have selected 543 members of the
sixteenth Lok Sabha, the popularly elected lower house of parliament or
the House of the People. The makeup of the house will determine who
emerges as the country’s next prime minister.
India, like the United States, is divided up into parliamentary constituencies (similar to congressional districts), and the person who wins the most votes in each constituency is elected. In this winner-take-all system (referred to as “first past the post”), the “election” is actually a series of 543 discrete constituency elections. The party, or coalition of parties, that manages to cobble together a majority of parliamentary seats forms the government.
Five striking structural trends that have emerged in India’s fifteen postindependence elections set the stage for 2014’s political contest. For starters, political competition in India has grown rapidly, particularly in the last two decades, ushering in a complex, fragmented party system. As elections have become more competitive, the average margin of victory in a typical parliamentary constituency has plummeted, reaching a record low in 2009.
The intensity of competition, coupled with the idiosyncrasies of India’s electoral rules, has also made forecasting elections more difficult, as a small swing in aggregate vote share can have massive repercussions on the number of seats a given party wins (or loses). Despite these trends, voter turnout has grown only modestly with popular participation varying across states. In fact, states are important players in many ways. India’s union has become significantly more decentralized, with its federal states playing a much more substantial role in the daily lives of their citizens. This, in turn, has solidified the primacy of state-level considerations even when it comes to voting in national elections.
The media has portrayed the upcoming contest as a head-to-head battle between the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty of the Congress Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the main opposition force led into elections by Gujarat state’s chief minister, Narendra Modi. But a closer look at these five trends that have unfolded over the last six decades illustrates why the election will likely hinge on a confluence of local factors.
The 1989 election heralded the end of single-party rule in India and the rise of multiparty coalition government, which is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. This further incentivized the growth of regional parties, whose leaders recognized that they could wield considerable influence in the formation of governments with a relatively small number of seats in parliament.
Yet, simply evaluating the number of parties participating in elections risks overstating the increase in competition because many parties are only minor contenders—with little chance of winning a sizeable number of votes or even a single seat for that matter. Between 1952 and 1984, the Lok Sabha saw on average 19 distinct parties occupying seats on its benches. After 1989, that number has averaged around 33. Following the 2009 election, 37 parties gained representation in parliament (today, that number stands at 39).
Weighing the number of parties by the number of seats they actually won in parliament—a common metric known as the “effective number of parties”—is a more accurate gauge of competition. Even using this refined measure, the increase remains substantial. The effective number of parties in India stood at 1.7 in 1952, grew to 4.3 in 1989, and rose to 6.5 in 2009 (see figure 2). To place this number in comparative context, Canada’s 2011 parliamentary election produced 3.4 effective parties while Brazil’s 2006 election produced over 10.
The effective number of parties varies greatly across India; indeed, states have developed their own “party systems.” For instance, in states such as Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh, elections are a bipolar contest between Congress and the BJP—the only two parties with a truly national reach. In several other states, such as Mizoram and Nagaland in the northeast, the contest is between Congress and a regional party. In Karnataka or Punjab, the contest is somewhere between a straight bipolar contest and a three-way race, typically with a regional party emerging as a significant player. And there are a handful of states with badly fragmented, multiparty systems. One example is Uttar Pradesh; many of the state’s constituencies feature a four-way race between the Congress Party, BJP, and two viable regional parties.
This degree of competitiveness at the constituency level in India is striking when compared to other electoral systems with similar winner-take-all electoral laws. For instance, the average margin of victory in a 2012 United States congressional race was nearly 32 percent—more than three times as large as in India. The average margin of victory in Britain’s 2010 parliamentary election was more than 18 percent.
As the number of parties (and, hence, candidates) increases and margins of victory shrink, a dwindling number of candidates win elections with the support of a majority of voters in their constituencies. As recently as 1999, as many as 40 percent of winning candidates enjoyed majority support. This figure has come down sharply in recent years, raising questions about the “legitimacy” of candidates who win with only minority support. In 2009, candidates won with more than 50 percent of the vote in a mere 22 percent of constituencies.
In 1996, Congress earned slightly less than 29 percent of the vote, while the BJP and smaller regional parties won 20 and 51 percent, respectively. Although there have been modest fluctuations in votes in the intervening elections, the shifts in vote shares over the past two decades have not been dramatic. In 2009, Congress won 28.5 percent of the vote; this was almost identical to its showing in both 1996 and 1999. The BJP’s vote share peaked in 1998, when it took home 25.6 percent of the vote. Since then, its vote share has declined slightly to 19 percent, down a little over one percentage point from its 1996 tally. The other parties held 51 percent of the vote in 1996 and 52.5 percent of the vote in 2009.
But appearances can be deceiving. There is a bias built into India’s electoral rules, which often results in a discrepancy between the share of votes won and the share of seats earned. For instance, the Bahujan Samaj Party won nearly 26 million votes (or 6.2 percent of the all-India vote share), yet in the vast majority of the 500 constituencies in which it fielded a candidate, it earned a relatively small share of the vote. The party performed well in its stronghold of Uttar Pradesh (winning 21 seats there), but its vote share outside of the state was too small to pick up additional seats.
There is rarely a perfect one-to-one correlation between votes and seats. Take the Congress Party. For every 1 percent share of the vote Congress garnered in 1977, it was rewarded with .9 seats (see figure 5). But in 1980, that changed drastically: a 1 percentage point increase in vote share was suddenly worth nearly 1.7 seats. This ratio is difficult to predict, and it varies wildly over election cycles; both the magnitude and the direction of bias can fluctuate substantially.
Even very small changes in the vote share can have dramatic impacts on the number of seats won. For instance, in 1999 and 2009 the Congress Party won an almost identical share of votes (28.3 versus 28.5 percent, respectively). Yet, with just a 0.2 percentage point difference in vote share, the party’s seat share rose from 25.8 percent (140 seats) to nearly 37.9 percent (206 seats). What triggers this effect is how broadly spread (or concentrated) a party’s vote share is at the level of individual constituencies. On an all-India level, a party’s aggregate vote share might not change much from one election to the next, but the distribution of where it got its votes could vary based on local factors such as the extent of competition and thus the fragmentation of the vote.
India, like the United States, is divided up into parliamentary constituencies (similar to congressional districts), and the person who wins the most votes in each constituency is elected. In this winner-take-all system (referred to as “first past the post”), the “election” is actually a series of 543 discrete constituency elections. The party, or coalition of parties, that manages to cobble together a majority of parliamentary seats forms the government.
Five striking structural trends that have emerged in India’s fifteen postindependence elections set the stage for 2014’s political contest. For starters, political competition in India has grown rapidly, particularly in the last two decades, ushering in a complex, fragmented party system. As elections have become more competitive, the average margin of victory in a typical parliamentary constituency has plummeted, reaching a record low in 2009.
The intensity of competition, coupled with the idiosyncrasies of India’s electoral rules, has also made forecasting elections more difficult, as a small swing in aggregate vote share can have massive repercussions on the number of seats a given party wins (or loses). Despite these trends, voter turnout has grown only modestly with popular participation varying across states. In fact, states are important players in many ways. India’s union has become significantly more decentralized, with its federal states playing a much more substantial role in the daily lives of their citizens. This, in turn, has solidified the primacy of state-level considerations even when it comes to voting in national elections.
The media has portrayed the upcoming contest as a head-to-head battle between the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty of the Congress Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the main opposition force led into elections by Gujarat state’s chief minister, Narendra Modi. But a closer look at these five trends that have unfolded over the last six decades illustrates why the election will likely hinge on a confluence of local factors.
Surging Political Competition
The most striking trend in Indian electoral politics is the explosion in political competition in recent years. In the 1952 general election, the first held after India won independence, 55 parties took part; in 2009, 370 parties entered the fray (see figure 1). The surge in political competition began in the 1980s—the number of parties contesting elections jumped from 38 in 1984 to 117 in 1989, a watershed year in Indian politics. It was only the second time since independence that the Congress Party was ousted from power. The dramatic surge in 1989 is explained by the proliferation of regional parties, which formed in direct response to popular disenchantment with Congress rule and the lack of representation for lower and backward castes, minorities, and regional or subregional interests.The 1989 election heralded the end of single-party rule in India and the rise of multiparty coalition government, which is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. This further incentivized the growth of regional parties, whose leaders recognized that they could wield considerable influence in the formation of governments with a relatively small number of seats in parliament.
Yet, simply evaluating the number of parties participating in elections risks overstating the increase in competition because many parties are only minor contenders—with little chance of winning a sizeable number of votes or even a single seat for that matter. Between 1952 and 1984, the Lok Sabha saw on average 19 distinct parties occupying seats on its benches. After 1989, that number has averaged around 33. Following the 2009 election, 37 parties gained representation in parliament (today, that number stands at 39).
Weighing the number of parties by the number of seats they actually won in parliament—a common metric known as the “effective number of parties”—is a more accurate gauge of competition. Even using this refined measure, the increase remains substantial. The effective number of parties in India stood at 1.7 in 1952, grew to 4.3 in 1989, and rose to 6.5 in 2009 (see figure 2). To place this number in comparative context, Canada’s 2011 parliamentary election produced 3.4 effective parties while Brazil’s 2006 election produced over 10.
The effective number of parties varies greatly across India; indeed, states have developed their own “party systems.” For instance, in states such as Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh, elections are a bipolar contest between Congress and the BJP—the only two parties with a truly national reach. In several other states, such as Mizoram and Nagaland in the northeast, the contest is between Congress and a regional party. In Karnataka or Punjab, the contest is somewhere between a straight bipolar contest and a three-way race, typically with a regional party emerging as a significant player. And there are a handful of states with badly fragmented, multiparty systems. One example is Uttar Pradesh; many of the state’s constituencies feature a four-way race between the Congress Party, BJP, and two viable regional parties.
Declining Margin of Victory
As the number of parties seeking—and winning—representation in parliament has steadily increased, so has the closeness of elections. The average margin of victory in a parliamentary constituency between 1962 and 2009 has decreased over time (see figure 3). From 1962 to 1977, elections in India actually became less competitive, with the average margin of victory in a constituency growing from nearly 15 percent in 1962 to 26 percent in 1977. Both 1971 and 1977 were unique “wave” elections. In 1971, the then Congress prime minister Indira Gandhi secured a landslide victory, and she was badly punished six years later in the wake of a two-year period of Emergency rule. Since 1977, however, the average margin of victory has come down substantially: in 2009, it registered at 9.7 percent, the thinnest margin since independence.
This degree of competitiveness at the constituency level in India is striking when compared to other electoral systems with similar winner-take-all electoral laws. For instance, the average margin of victory in a 2012 United States congressional race was nearly 32 percent—more than three times as large as in India. The average margin of victory in Britain’s 2010 parliamentary election was more than 18 percent.
As the number of parties (and, hence, candidates) increases and margins of victory shrink, a dwindling number of candidates win elections with the support of a majority of voters in their constituencies. As recently as 1999, as many as 40 percent of winning candidates enjoyed majority support. This figure has come down sharply in recent years, raising questions about the “legitimacy” of candidates who win with only minority support. In 2009, candidates won with more than 50 percent of the vote in a mere 22 percent of constituencies.
Unpredictable Translation of Votes Into Seats
Although the number of players in elections has grown exponentially and the competitiveness of elections has correspondingly shot up, looking back at the last several national election cycles, it appears as if the share of votes earned by Congress, the BJP, and the total of the remaining (principally regional) parties combined is actually in relative equilibrium (see figure 4).In 1996, Congress earned slightly less than 29 percent of the vote, while the BJP and smaller regional parties won 20 and 51 percent, respectively. Although there have been modest fluctuations in votes in the intervening elections, the shifts in vote shares over the past two decades have not been dramatic. In 2009, Congress won 28.5 percent of the vote; this was almost identical to its showing in both 1996 and 1999. The BJP’s vote share peaked in 1998, when it took home 25.6 percent of the vote. Since then, its vote share has declined slightly to 19 percent, down a little over one percentage point from its 1996 tally. The other parties held 51 percent of the vote in 1996 and 52.5 percent of the vote in 2009.
But appearances can be deceiving. There is a bias built into India’s electoral rules, which often results in a discrepancy between the share of votes won and the share of seats earned. For instance, the Bahujan Samaj Party won nearly 26 million votes (or 6.2 percent of the all-India vote share), yet in the vast majority of the 500 constituencies in which it fielded a candidate, it earned a relatively small share of the vote. The party performed well in its stronghold of Uttar Pradesh (winning 21 seats there), but its vote share outside of the state was too small to pick up additional seats.
There is rarely a perfect one-to-one correlation between votes and seats. Take the Congress Party. For every 1 percent share of the vote Congress garnered in 1977, it was rewarded with .9 seats (see figure 5). But in 1980, that changed drastically: a 1 percentage point increase in vote share was suddenly worth nearly 1.7 seats. This ratio is difficult to predict, and it varies wildly over election cycles; both the magnitude and the direction of bias can fluctuate substantially.
Even very small changes in the vote share can have dramatic impacts on the number of seats won. For instance, in 1999 and 2009 the Congress Party won an almost identical share of votes (28.3 versus 28.5 percent, respectively). Yet, with just a 0.2 percentage point difference in vote share, the party’s seat share rose from 25.8 percent (140 seats) to nearly 37.9 percent (206 seats). What triggers this effect is how broadly spread (or concentrated) a party’s vote share is at the level of individual constituencies. On an all-India level, a party’s aggregate vote share might not change much from one election to the next, but the distribution of where it got its votes could vary based on local factors such as the extent of competition and thus the fragmentation of the vote.
End of document
NARESH KUMAR PGDM
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