A Tsunami it was..

So it is done, done and dusted. It has been more than 2 week since the results came in, and quite a couple of weeks it has been, a time of celebration for some and introspection for others. The BJP capped its phenomenal campaign with a final tally of 282 seats, in the process making this the first election in 30 years where one party has been able to win a simple majority on its own.  In the last post, I rambled on wondering what kind of ‘wave’ would be needed to drive the BJP to the kind of victory the opinion polls predicted for the BJP. The semantic debate seems settled now, nothing less than ‘tsunami’ would do to explain the upsurge of support that the BJP was able to muster especially in the keys states of UP and Bihar, a tsunami that has shattered many tenets of Indian politics and left several questions in its wake. 
  
While the result has kicked off another veritable tsunami of elation and anticipation on the right it has no doubt left a lot of liberal centrist friends disappointed. The reactions range from resignation to despair and denial. It is the last kind of reaction that I find particularly dangerous because it prevents the kind of introspection that is needed by believers of liberal centrism if they want to remain a political force to reckon with. There have been articles that seem to blame everything from the first past the post system to communal polarization to the BJP's marketing blitz. In my humble opinion romanticizing about proportional representation, blaming the electorate of being naive to (and even being complicit in) the dangers of communal politics or making Dentsu the scapegoat is not going to help. 

Diversity of ideas and thought is the driving force for any democracy and strong left/centrist forces are as important as strong rightist ones for the health of ours. Serious introspection is called for in the liberal/centrist camp, but even before that a humble acceptance of the mandate is absolutely essential. Here again there are a few cases where the denial is almost pathological, like one that called the result 'a stolen verdict'. Liberal thought would do well to pick its 'ambassadors' from the 'cheerleaders'. The intent in this post is to understand the result of this election in more detail and put some numbers around the magnitude of this verdict. 

Let me get done with the basics first. To start with the final tally by party and alliance – ‘mission 272’ accomplished for the BJP, with some to spare, and utter decimation for the congress, the likes of which it has never seen in its checkered history.  

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Next on the list is to take a quick look at the regional distribution of the seats, one that we have undoubtedly seen countless times but still throws out a couple insights every time it is re-examined. The graphic below does that and also compares with how it stacks in comparison to 2009.

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A lot has been talked about the BJP's sweep across north, west and central India and a picture is worth a thousand words, so i will not dwell on that. Just that it is interesting that the picture for 2014 looks like a saffron surge, with its epicenter in Gujarat and a focused thrust towards Purvanchal has washed through the country only meeting any significant resistance along the southern and south eastern coast.  Even here, the party's performance in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Assam, areas which they have not been strong traditionally, should be  encouraging to the BJP and unnerving to its opponents.

On the other hand its not a pretty picture for the congress. Its final tally of 44 is made even more miserable by the fact that  it has not crossed over to double digits in even a single state, i.e. it is not even left with significant pockets of regional influence to show for. In previous posts I have talked about how the urban seats were a significant factor in the Congress's  performance in the last election. This time the congress had to face a rout here - not even a single seat from the ~30 seats in the 7 Metros (including Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune). Perhaps most galling for the Congress would be its performance in what have long been considered its bastions. The graphic below shows the results in constituencies where the Congress has won 8 or more times in the last 10 elections. 

The losses in Nanddurbar and Sangli, where the Congress has won every election all the way till 1977 (and even in 1977), and urban strongholds like Mysore and Nagpur would hurt and should.

Moving on, lets take a quick look at polygonal contests in this election ( more on polygonality and method used in a previous post) 

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As expected, the elections in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh were almost entirely direct contest between the BJP and the Congress. Maharashtra threw up a bit of a surprise in the sense that it was largely a 2 cornered contest this time between the BJP-Sena and Congress-NCP alliances. Unlike the last election the MNS (in Mumbai) and BSP (in Vidharba) did not play a significant role (more on the effect MNS had in 2009). Also, as expected wherever there was a direct contest between the BJP and Congress the BJP has made a clean sweep.

A quick look at the margins of victory (below) also shows the gulf between the two parties in Western and Central India (where they are engaged in largely a direct contest)

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The next graphic shows the distribution of seats and vote shares across the different states and union territories. 

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Once again it shows the gulf in vote share that led to the BJP sweep in north and west India. In MP it is ~ 20%, in Gujarat ~ 30% and in Rajasthan ~25%. In the 3 and 4 cornered contests of UP and Bihar the BJP had a 20% and 10% lead respectively over its nearest opponent. In a first past the post system, a 20% vote share differential, more often than not leads to a complete sweep as we saw this time (as always move the cursor over the graphic to use the interactive features of tableau)

One quick look at the map of constituencies by winning party in 2014 also shows that the the BJP has announced itself in the very frontiers of the country - the northern most constituency - Ladakh, the Western most - Kachchh, the easternmost, Arunachal East and the southern most (doesnt matter if we think it is Kanyakumari or Andaman & Nicobar Islands), have all gone to the BJP. This seems to be the election where the BJP has made the transition to a truly national party - or at least as national a party as there is today. The graphic below shows this a bit more clearly - this is the first time the BJP (or any other party for that matter) has won seats in more states than the Congress has.

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Lastly any analysis of an election would be incomplete without a historical context. The graphic below shows how the vote shares garnered by the BJP and the Congress compare with their historical performance. I bring it up towards the end because I believe that in the context of this election comparing vote shares is kind of misleading, primarily because of the huge increase in the number of voters this time. Never the less it is still important to talk about, in terms of broader trends.

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Five thing can be seen right away. 
Firstly the Congress is at the worst that it has been in its history, not just in terms of seats, but also in terms of vote share. The 19% it mustered this time is a good 10% lower than what it had in its previous low in 1998. It will take something radical to reverse this downward trend but all indications are that the grand old party will turn to the dynasty again for salvation like it did in 1998. In itself that might not be sufficient

Secondly, for the BJP, this is the first time it has crossed the Congress in terms of vote share. Even in its previous prime, in 1998, it was marginally below the Congress. Seen together the curves for the BJP and the Congress almost seem to suggest that that there has been an exodus of voters from the Congress to the BJP. Suffice to say now that this would be a simplistic conclusion to make.  

Thirdly, the communists continue on the path of steady decline, one that started around the time they made the 'historical blunder' in 1996, and was only briefly reversed in the 2004 election. With 11 seats between them and a meager 5% vote share they are pretty much at the lowest point in their history (barring the first election in 1951). For all practical purposes they have been relegated to regional pockets in Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura.

Fourthly, the fate of the remnants of Janta movement, the ideological progeny of JP, seems to be in a state of terminal decline. The word socialist is probably inappropriate for this motley group as they exist today, retaining influence only as caste based parties. So what really happened in UP? Are caste equations as an electoral strategy dead? Attempting to understand this tectonic shift in the politics of India's heartland will need more thought, perhaps a separate post.

Fifthly, Many see this election together with the one in 2009 as signs of the retreat of regionalism from Indian polity. I believed that this argument is again simplistic. Even in this election when for the first time in 30 years the country has given a simple majority to one party, the regional parties taken together are only increasing in influence. For all we know, the primary opposition for the BJP in the coming election may be in the form of a federal front. 

To end with, any which way one looks at it, this is a thumping victory for the BJP and crushing defeat for the Congress. There is no point in belittling the 31% vote share, it is still the highest vote share that a single party has secured in the last 5 general elections. And if we think it in terms of pre-poll alliances we would have to go all the way back to 1989 to find a vote share higher than the NDA's 38%. Even Nehru, the most popular congress leader in independent India by far, could never muster more than 48%. His grandson did but even Rajiv Gandhi, with 4/5th majority did not cross the 50% mark- that mark has never been breached. That is how the first past the post system in a multiparty democracy works. Of course, it is not perfect. Of course, It leads to anomaly like the BSP getting close to 20% and no seats in UP, but these are the rules of the game. One can’t give oneself a reasonable shot at winning if one stays in denial of the rules. The Center-left of Indian politics has to set its house in order - but that is only going to be possible if they solemnly accept this mandate, feel the gravel in the mouth, and think about what needs to be done to make a comeback.