One Nation One Election: 2019’s limited simultaneous polls suggest traction for regional over national

The BJP may not necessarily benefit from “one election” as is being propagated. The strong regional parties stand to gain. (PTI/File)

GoI has formed a panel to explore the possibility of “one nation one election”. The Opposition sees this as an attempt by the BJP to “nationalise” the state elections and hence emerge as the beneficiary. The ruling party has been arguing that this would reduce costs, administrative overheads and policy deviations.

Essentially, the Opposition feels that the BJP, riding on the back of its pole position in national politics, stands to gain in state elections with “one election”.

Regional Parties Dominate Simultaneous Polls

Simultaneous polls happened in India for five states in 2014: Telangana, Andhra, Odisha, Sikkim and Arunachal, and then again in 2019 barring Telangana. Except Arunachal, regional parties which won the state election went on to win the most Lok Sabha seats too.

Naveen Patnaik’s BJD won the state elections in 2019 (117/147 seats) and the 12 of 21 Lok Sabha seats. BJP won eight of the 21 seats, but six of these were close contests with less than five percentage point margin. In Andhra, Jagan Reddy’s YSRCP won the state elections (151/175 seats) and 22 of 25 LS seats.

In Sikkim, Sikkim Kranti Morcha won the state elections (17/32 seats) and the lone Lok Sabha seat. BJP won 41 out of 60 Arunachal assembly seats in 2019 and both the Lok Sabha seats. In Telangana’s simultaneous poll in 2014, K Chandrashekar Rao’s TRS, now BRS, won the state elections bagging 63 of the 119 seats on offer and 11 of the 17 LS seats. When KCR decoupled the elections in the 2019 cycle, his party tally was reduced by 2 LS seats.

Split Voting Pattern

The absolute number of votes polled and vote share of parties in these states is almost identical. Our analysis of 15 parties across states shows 10 instances where the vote share in Lok Sabha is within the +/- 2.5 percentage point vote share range of the Vidhan Sabha.

The total votes polled by the BJP in Lok Sabha elections gets a slight boost in Odisha, Arunachal and Sikkim. Even Congress gained votes in Arunachal compared to Vidhan Sabha elections as some smaller parties got crowded out.

The trend of split voting, which is people voting differently in Vidhan and Lok Sabha elections is not visible to a large extent except in Odisha. Here, some split voting is visible mainly in urban areas. Of the 8 seats which BJP won, 6 were urban, having a municipal corporation or municipality.

What is it that draws the people to the booth? Are they going to vote for electing a CM or a PM? This is a key question. Or do they have enough clarity on both aspects.

Data shows most voters exhibiting a tendency to press the button for the same party for both elections. And this is what has created fear in minds of opposition.

History of Simultaneous Polls

Simultaneous polls used to take place for state and national elections from 1952-1967. The Congress party ruled at the Centre and in most of the states, except for intermittent periods in Kerala and Odisha in 15 years from 1952-67.

The 1967 elections marked the end of an era in Indian politics, the era of the unchallenged supremacy of the Congress. The party could not secure a simple majority in 8 of the 16 state elections, where non-Congress governments were installed.

For the first time the Congress could not get 350 plus seats in Lok Sabha elections, (average of 1952,57,62) and its tally fell below 300 for the first time. Regional parties, breakaway groups dented Congress party’s chances, which was also reflected in the Lok Sabha elections.

In the states Congress lost power, it lost seats in Lok Sabha too bringing down its tally to 283. Regional parties, breakaway Congress groups performed better in Lok Sabha as well due to their state elections performance.

Who Benefits From One Election?

The 1967 results and 2014/19 results show that the party which is stronger in states, tends to benefit in Lok Sabha too during simultaneous polls, because split voting pattern is not the norm. If any, split voting is observed mostly only in urban centres.

So, the BJP may not necessarily benefit from “one election” as is being propagated. The strong regional parties stand to gain. In fact, regional parties may get extra seats than they deserve in Lok Sabha because of simultaneous polls.

Is BJP’s decision of one nation, one election influenced by the outcome of the 2018 and 2019 assembly polls held a few months before and after the Lok Sabha polls? BJP didn’t fare as well as it expected in Rajasthan, MP, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand. Does it believe that simultaneous polling with the Lok Sabha would have helped it in these six states?

What would happen in states like Rajasthan, MP, Chhattisgarh, where it's largely a bipolar contest with both BJP and Congress having similar support/vote share? A very difficult question to answer.

Split voting is possible if elections are held at different points, voters clearly making distinction between a state and national election. Like BJP sweeping Delhi in 2019 general elections and later AAP sweeping in state elections in 2020. However, when they are held together, this distinction gets blurred to a large extent. Parties strong in states tend to benefit as historical data shows.

One very important consideration in this entire puzzle is, which EVM is placed first for voting at the booth: the Vidhan Sabha EVM for election of the MLA or the Lok Sabha one for election of MP.

Amitabh Tiwari is a former corporate and investment banker-turned political strategist and commentator. Twitter: @politicalbaaba. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.