Congress-Mukt Bharat Not Good For BJP

In the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) rush to create a Congress-mukt Bharat, did the party inadvertently create a BJP-mukt state in Delhi? A look at charts and data on the vote share trends from 2013 to 2015 points to the dangers of a Congress-mukt strategy for BJP.

The chart below shows Congress at 23 per cent, BJP at 33 per cent and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) at 29 per cent vote share in the 2013 Delhi election. In the same election, BJP got 32 seats, AAP got 28 seats and Congress got eight seats.

However, in the 2015 election, Congress vote share was decimated to 9.7 per cent and, along with it, BJP’s chances of a fragmented vote base. AAP managed to transfer the Congress vote share, while BJP’s vote share stagnated at 33 per cent. However, the impact on the seats was much greater with BJP getting only three seats with the same 33 per cent vote share.

When we analyse the same voting patterns at a more granular sub-group level, we find similar vote transfer patterns from the Congress to AAP.

Congress’ traditional support base in Delhi has been Muslims and Dalits who make up 12 per cent and 17 per cent of the population, respectively. In the 2013 election, the Muslim vote was more fragmented with only 53 per cent of the vote going to Congress and the rest going to other parties. However, in the 2015 election, a staggering 77 per cent of Muslims voted for AAP, an increase of 65 per cent from the 2013 elections.

With Muslims consolidating in favour of AAP – given that Congress was perceived to have little chance at winning — BJP lost a much higher proportion of seats.

Among the Dalit vote base, Congress lost 17 per cent of the vote share going from 23 per cent to six per cent, while AAP benefited from that loss and increased its share from 37 per cent to 68 per cent. An additional factor in the Dalit vote base is that the Bahujan Samaj Party’s vote share decreased from 6.9 per cent in 2013 to less than one per cent, similarly benefitting AAP.

Keeping this electoral mathematics in mind, does it make more sense for BJP to have Congress as a semi-serious player so that the vote of the opposition keeps getting fragmented? After all, the shoe is on the other foot now – the BJP has emerged as India’s primary political party and having lots of weak opponents is better than some players being completely dead.

So maybe a better strategy would be to aim for a Congress Semi-Mukt Bharat?