Revenge of the powerless voter
It is a strong statistical phenomenon — the voter who did not vote for the party that gained power through a disproportionate seat share tends to restore vote-seat justice in the next poll
Justice index captures the mismatch between votes polled and seats won by any major political party. (Design by C R Sasikumar)
In the vote-rich waters of the UP electoral Ganges, all key parties have made their first moves. Not to be left behind, poll pundits have waded into the (un)swachh electoral whirlpool, to make “first ever” predictions of political fortunes. They have staked out their familiar filters of communal consolidation, beef, caste, OBC, Dalit, “CM face”, coalitions, manufactured waves, quotas, dynasties, freebies, and that matchless lubricant of all elections — money.
But these variables seem much weaker predictors of electoral victory of major parties than what this writer will term the “index of justice”.
Justice index captures the mismatch between votes polled and seats won by any major political party. A perfect match seems to be at the core of electoral success, denoting perfect justice in the ratio of seats won to votes polled. Negative values of the justice index point to a party deprived of its share of seats won, compared to votes polled, and a justice value well above 1 indicates that a party has been over-rewarded in terms of seats won compared to votes polled. Deviations from parity — justice at 1 — mask an astonishing electoral truth, which is described below, based on Election Commission data.
Staggeringly, the value of the index of justice seems to predict the winner in the next elections much more accurately than all the variables that we have been trotting out unquestioningly at election time. How strong is the evidence that the mismatch between votes polled and seats won — the justice index — is an important indicator of election results?
Consider the evidence of how the voter perceives if justice has been done (or not) to a political party, and how this has influenced her/his voting behaviour, illustratively in UP, Bihar, Maharashtra, Karnataka (the association is weaker in states with entrenched two-party contests).
First, take a look at the Bihar Vidhan Sabha results for the past two elections. Bihar Vidhan Sabha 2015 elections spiked the NDA’s armour of invincibility, but the analysis really starts in the 2010 elections, when the BJP won a disproportionate number of seats (91) compared to its small vote share (16.5 per cent), which amounted to an alarmingly high justice (overdone) index. Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) also had a bloated seat share compared to vote share (115 seats, 22.6 per cent votes). The RJD, on the other hand, was manifestly short-changed with seats well below its vote share (22 seats, 19 per cent votes), with a negative justice (not done) index. The Congress suffered the most spectacular mismatch between seat and vote share (4 seats, 8.4 per cent votes), with an abysmal justice (not done) index.
In the Bihar Vidhan Sabha polls in 2015, voters (or vote banks) seemed to have retained a mass memory of the “injustices” of the previous poll in 2010, and pitched for justice in 2015. So, the BJP’s over-sized winning total was slashed to 53 (now almost at parity with votes polled). The JD(U) was down-sized to 70 even allowing for fewer seats contested, but it should worry the JD(U) that its justice index is still too high. But note how voters corrected the RJD’s humiliation and piled 82 seats in its account (Lalu alert: The justice index is too high now). But the most remarkable transformation is of the Congress, which voters seem to have retrieved from the gulag of irrelevance to 27 seats (justice index high now).
Using 2015 vote-seat data, expect the BJP to do well in the next Bihar Vidhan Sabha poll, expect Lalu to lose impressively, and also expect the JD(U) and Congress to lose seats. Sushil Modi is the star of 2020, and politicians should adjust their obeisance accordingly.
So what is really at work when you find the seat-vote “injustice” corrected in the next poll? Is it revenge voting based on binaries of caste and communal considerations? Or do voters in general have long memories of their own marginalisation which weigh in when they vote in the next election? Is the result of the current poll seeded in the previous poll? Or was the justice done result of Bihar in 2015 a fluke?
Consider Maharashtra. The last two polls were held in 2009 and 2014. In 2009, compared to votes polled, the Congress and NCP won a disproportionately high “unjustified” number of seats compared to votes polled (82 and 62 respectively), while the BJP and Shiv Sena sailed close to “justice” (46 and 44). Now observe Maharashtra’s results in the 2014 poll, when voters righted many imbalances or corrected the “injustice” of the preceding poll. The BJP’s seats rose steeply (122 seats, but justice was over done), the Congress and NCP seats fell precipitously (42 and 41 seats, now both at parity with votes polled), and the Shiv Sena gained (63 seats, at parity).
Just in case readers regard this a phenomenon of the north and west, we find that the Karnataka Vidhan Sabha results of the last two elections in 2008 and 2013 also clearly exhibit the “justice” phenomenon. And voters who restore “justice”, or vote share-seat share balance, seem to be none other than those who have not voted for the party that won disproportionately.
So how does the “justice” map of the 403-seat UP Vidhan Sabha look in 2017? Diving for evidence in the previous two polls, and using “justice” data of 2007, it could be safely predicted that the BSP’s seat share would decline in 2012 (it did — BSP’s seats fell to 80, with a 26 per cent vote share; so “injustice” was done to the BSP in 2012). The SP’s healthy vote-seat parity in the previous poll and imaginative and humble cycle-campaign was rewarded, but too richly at 224 seats (but with only 29 per cent vote share, the SP was over-compensated), and both the BJP and Congress won seats in an equitable ratio.
Now for the predictions of seat trends in the strategic UP polls next year: Using the “justice” index, this writer predicts that the BSP will gain seats in 2017 (correcting “injustice” of the previous poll), the SP’s seats will decline (towards “justice”), the BJP is likely to increase its seat tally somewhat, and the Congress’ seat share will also increase modestly. But since both the BJP and Congress currently have a vote-seat parity, any gain by either will be based on voters’ perception of a sensitive, people-oriented party, that delivers with humility.
National political parties too, preparing for the 2019 Lok Sabha contest, might take note of the justice index. In each of the 2004, 2009 and 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the mismatch between votes polled and seats won was corrected in the next election. Recall that in 2014, the BJP won 282 seats and 31 per cent vote share, and the Congress won 44 seats and about 20 per cent vote share. Are the 69 per cent voters who did not vote for the BJP accumulating long memories of the 2014 Congress slaughter?
The revenge of the powerless voter is a strong statistical phenomenon — the voter who did not vote for the party that gained power through a disproportionate seat share. In view of the arc of voter behaviour tending towards electoral “justice”, aggressive and domineering behaviour by political parties seems suicidal, as in the BJP mounting its “Congress-mukt” campaign, since it drives the adverse voter further away.
The “justice” phenomenon shows that those who did not vote for a party, matter a great deal to the party. The sword of the marginalised voter’s justice hangs inexorably on the poll landscape, and can shaft all assumptions of acquiring power on the back of unearned seat bonanzas.
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