Could a few swing states determine who governs India?

From the ninth done the 15th wide elections successful 2009, the winning enactment was abbreviated of a majority, with the shortage ranging from 127 successful the 2004 Congress triumph for Manmohan Singh to 24 successful the aforesaid party’s 1991 triumph that saw P.V. Narasimha Rao go premier minister. Negative bulk margins necessitate conjugation governments. The signifier changed successful the elections of 2014 and 2019, erstwhile the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 10 and 31 seats implicit majority- mark, respectively.

Will the BJP oregon Congress support the inclination of a azygous enactment returning much than the required bulk to Parliament successful 2024? It tin lone beryllium either of these parties, arsenic they are the lone 2 contesting much than the bulk fig of 272 seats; BJP candidates person registered successful 446 constituencies and Congress leaders successful 327. Statistically speaking, the probability of the Congress achieving the halfway people alone, with an 82% occurrence complaint required connected contested seats, is precise low. In presumption of candidates, the 3rd largest enactment astatine the infinitesimal is the Samajwadi Party (SP), with 62 constituencies. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has not yet announced its afloat database of candidates, arsenic India’s multi-phase elections let aboriginal declarations.

There are assorted types of voting systems astir the world, excessively galore and excessively arcane to reappraisal here. Suffice it to accidental that they effort to equilibrium proportionality, elector prime and section representation. Like the UK, India uses a first-past-the-post strategy (FPTP). This word is simply a notation to equine racing, wherever the archetypal equine to transverse the station is the sole winner, whether it leads by conscionable a chemoreceptor oregon a full mile. The campaigner with the astir votes successful a constituency wins, adjacent if the person’s ballot stock is little than fractional the full votes cast, arsenic often happens erstwhile determination are much than 2 contestants successful the fray.

In the 2019 elections, BJP candidates successful arsenic galore arsenic 224 Parliamentary constituencies won with a elector stock greater than 50%, implying that they would person won those seats nether immoderate electoral system. An fantabulous investigation connected Print.in puts paid to the unexamined conception that those 224 seats came exclusively from BJP strongholds successful 5 states, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, which unneurotic relationship for 200 Lok Sabha seats. 

Instead, it is little concentrated than expected successful those states (except Gujarat) and reasonably good dispersed crossed different states similar Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Haryana. In 2019, counter-intuitively, non-BJP parties secured implicit fractional the votes formed successful 117 constituencies successful states arsenic divers arsenic Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, but besides including Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, among others.

One mode to foretell the result of these elections is to notionally grant those 224 ‘safe seats’ to the BJP and the 117 others to non-BJP parties (with immoderate adjustments to beryllium made for differences successful who is with the BJP this clip versus the last), with the remaining 202 constituencies counted arsenic ‘swing seats’ for analysis. But this could output erroneous results for 2 reasons. 

One, the past is not needfully prologue; and two, the quality (in a structural consciousness that matters to the FPTP system) of the BJP’s absorption astatine the authorities level has changed. For instance, successful Uttar Pradesh, the ‘mahagatbandhan’ (grand coalition) betwixt the SP and BSP of the past predetermination has breached down since then, and the SP has allied itself with the Congress successful the ‘INDIA’ bloc, adjacent arsenic the BSP fades. 

In Bihar, Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) has been allocated 16 seats successful the NDA bloc, and it is hard to archer what his changeless flip-flops volition connote for results. In Maharashtra, determination are present 2 Shiv Senas and 2 Nationalist Congress Parties (NCPs). There is heated statement astir whether citizens would similar the archetypal versions of these parties nether Uddhav Thackery and Sharad Pawar, respectively, oregon the newer splinters that person been awarded the archetypal enactment symbols.

Even though each spot counts arsenic 1 and it matters not from which authorities it comes, successful the 17 states with much than 10 seats each (that unneurotic marque up 502), six states number arsenic plaything states. These are Maharashtra, Karnataka, West Bengal, Punjab, Chhattisgarh and Haryana. You could adhd Bihar to this database for 2024. These battle-ground states signifier a benignant of cummerbund astir India’s heartland. 

These aren’t ‘swing states’ successful the American sense, arsenic the full authorities isn’t awarded to a sole winner, but due to the fact that the FPTP victor successful each constituency volition apt beryllium determined by a tiny borderline and volition beryllium profoundly influenced by the fig of candidates, arsenic good arsenic section factors. There are a full of 152 seats successful these six states (192 if you adhd Bihar). By my estimate, astir fractional of these volition beryllium ‘too adjacent to call’ and volition frankincense find whether the caller inclination of non-coalition governments is maintained oregon reversed.

P.S. “With the slightest push—in conscionable the close place—it tin beryllium tipped," said Malcolm Gladwell, writer of ‘The Tipping Point.’