Delhi Results: Storm in a tea cup

                                     For many of us, who had ferociously supported Modi-led BJP in 2014 General elections for the Lok Sabha and later got back to our mundane desk jobs, Delhi results came in a complete shocker. How possible could, a party which swept all the 7 seats in LS elections just 8 months back, be defeated so badly.  This was worse than Indian cricket team getting whitewashed 4-0 in England and Australia just after winning the World Cup in 2011. And the opponent, a puny 2 year old party, which was badly decimated in the Lok Sabha elections. How could they stage such a stunning comeback? 

I decided to study the results deeper to figure out what exactly happened. Thanks to www.indiavotes.com, all the election data is readily available in a easily usable format. 

First, we should put things in perspective. For all the mind space and news space that it occupies, Delhi has limited significant in a national picture. It has 7 seats out of 543 (1.3%). In comparison, Mumbai & Thane together have 9 LS seats and Chennai / Kolkata both have around 5 seats. But the other 3 metros don't quite get the same level of attention that Delhi gets. In terms of Voter base, Delhi has around 1.3 Crore voters, a puny 1.5% of the total India base of ~84 Crores. It's ranked 19th in terms of size of electorate amongst the States/UTs of India. So though Delhi occupies the pride of place as the Capital of India, electorally, its far less important than UP, Bihar or even Chhattisgarh.

Fig 1: Rank of states/UTs by their Voter base

Vote Shares

While a lot of BJP supporters have put forth the point that BJP has managed to salvage its vote share and maintain it almost the same level of 2013 elections, taking a slightly longer-term view, its clear that from 2008 to 2015 - BJP, Cong and others have all lost vote shares - to Aam Aadmi Party. 

Fig 2: Vote share from 1993-2015

In the last 6 elections, BJP has its best vote share in 1993 - 42%. The 32.2% share that it secured in 2015 elections has been its worst performance ever. Also to be noted, any party which has secured a majority in Delhi election has always needed more than 40% vote share.  In 2013, when none of the parties could manage 40% vote, it resulted in a hung assembly. Delhi polity has always been bi-polar with BJP and Cong leaving little space for the "other" parties. The Non-BJP, Non-Cong parties like BSP, NCP etc have managed to hold to a 20-25% share of the votes in every election. In 2013, bi-polar contest was turned into a tri-polar with entry of AAP. But in 2015, Cong was decimated, leaving the contest bi-polar again. However, the non-BJP, non-AAP parties managed to secure only 13% of the votes, rest of which was entirely subsumed into AAP vote share. That this vote share transfer could happen within an year, and to a party which has no credentials, and was recently dumped in the Lok Sabha elections held 8 months back, is absolutely unprecedented. And, extremely suspect. What are the factors and forces which are behind this shift? There's definitely a lot more than what meets the eye. 

Votes Polled

Fig 3: Votes polled by each party from 1993-2015

If we look at the votes polled chart, the rise of AAP in Delhi is nothing less than spectacular. With less than an year since inception, it managed to convince 23 lakh voters to vote for them in 2013. Post multiple U-turns and 2014 LS thrashing, it managed to double the number of voters to 49 lakhs!! In fact, in the Delhi LS elections, in which approx 82 lakh voters cast their voters, AAP managed to get 27 lakh votes, higher than 2013 Assembly. BJP sailed home with 38 lalh voters and Cong sunk to 12 lakh votes. So the strengthening of AAP voter base and abandoning of congress was very much happening during lok sabha elections as well. That the Delhi voter preferred AAP over congress in the Lok Sabha elections, just after the dharna/bhagoda drama must be an eye opener. The assumption that if the elections were held right after LS elections, BJP would have won easily, should be questioned. Delhi's fling with AAP started with Anna movement and has continued to get stronger with each election. It's best to let the people get a real hang of the kind of governance which AAP will bring. Sadly, the bill for Delhi electorate's greed for freebies will have to be borne by the entire country. 

Constituency Deep dive

In all, BJP secured 3 lakh more votes vs. 2013 elections. Consider the following points -

1. In 28/70 seats, BJP vote share increased vs. 2013. This included 21 seats where BJP has lost in 2013. 
2. Off the 28 seats where BJP vote share increased, they managed to win only two - 
• Vishwas Nagar - which they had won in 2013 as well, but is a traditional Congress seat. 
• Rohini - A new seat created after delimitation in 2008. BJP won handsomely in 2008 and AAP narrowly in 2013. 
3. Off the rest, where BJP lost vote share in 2015, it managed to win only one - Mustafabad. Interestingly, this is a traditional Cong seat. And the only seat where Cong managed to put up a good fight with 32% vote share. 
4. BJP in 2015 got more votes than in 2013 in all but 18 seats. Without doubt, BJP lost all these 18 seats. 
• 8 off these 18 seats (Ambedkar Nagar, Badli, Balli Maran, Deoli, Mangolpuri, Sadar Bazar, Sultanpur Majra, Vikaspuri) are congress bastions which have not become AAP assets. 
• 10 off the 18 seats where BJP got lower votes were won by BJP in 2013 elections. Off these 10, 5 constituencies - Krishna Nagar, Adarsh Nagar, Kirari, Rithala and Tughlakabad are BJP bastions. While this may point to a internal sabotage, it's limited to just 5 constituencies and there doesn't seem to be any evidence of large scale sabotage.
• In the rest of the 51 seats, BJP has secured 3.5 lakhs higher votes than in 2013. But managed to win only 3. 

 In all, two theories 

1. BJP would have won had it held elections right after Lok Sabha elections
2. BJP lost because of internal sabotage or strategically lost

don't seem to be true. BJP did try to win, but ran a very weak campaign with poor strategy and leadership. Congress gave up mid-way through the campaign and voters seem to have shifted enmasse to AAP. Hopefully the voters would see through the hollowness of socialist promises by then and BJP would be able to come up with a better strategy to divide the opposition vote.