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Business News/ Politics / Policy/  Election Metrics | Maharashtra’s permutations and combinations
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Election Metrics | Maharashtra’s permutations and combinations

An analysis of how the 'game' played by BJP and NCP to break up their alliances played out in election results

In the last elections in 2009, the BJP had fought a paltry 119 seats (less than they won this time) and the Shiv Sena had fought 160. The relationship between the parties definitely needs to reverse in case they come together again. Photo: Premium
In the last elections in 2009, the BJP had fought a paltry 119 seats (less than they won this time) and the Shiv Sena had fought 160. The relationship between the parties definitely needs to reverse in case they come together again. Photo:

Mumbai: In an earlier edition, Election Metrics had talked about the need for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) to reset their respective alliances in Maharashtra, which had led them to the simultaneous action of breaking their respective alliances. We had commented that it was akin to a classic Prisoner’s Dilemma, with both parties loathe to break their respective alliances unless there was a guarantee the other major alliance in Maharashtra also broke.

One class of people that has definitely gained from the break-up of the two alliances is the set of analysts like this author. Data such as individual strengths of each party in an alliance, which would have otherwise had to be inferred from alliance totals, are now clearly available. Based on these elections, for example, we can analyse the relative contributions of the BJP and the Shiv Sena to their alliance in the 2009 elections (like we did for Congress and the NCP using data from 1999 and 2004 elections).

However, that is not what we will do in this edition of Election Metrics. What we will do instead, is to analyse how the “game" played by the BJP and the NCP to break up their respective alliances played out.

We will consider four situations, which were listed out in a previous edition of the Election Metrics. First is the situation as it played out in the elections—both alliances having broken up and each party contesting independently. The other three situations are hypothetical—what if the Congress and the NCP had remained intact with the BJP and the Shiv Sena breaking up, what if both alliances had remained intact and what if the BJP and Shiv Sena had remained together with the Congress and the NCP breaking up?

Given the multi-cornered contest that ensued, thanks to the break-up of both alliances, we will assume from the data that the votes gained by each party represent true preferences of their constituents and there has been no “transfer of votes".

Not all parties contested in all seats, but we will assume that if a party didn’t put up a candidate for a seat, it was because of the lack of strength in that seat, and that the party’s vote share there was actually zero. Further, we will assume full transfer of votes to an alliance—for example, if we have to analyse the situation where the BJP and the Shiv Sena were to come together, we will simply add up the votes of the two parties in each constituency and treat them as one.

The accompanying table presents the distribution of seats of major parties/alliances in each of the four cases we have considered above.

What we see here is in case of only the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance being intact (and the Congress and the NCP breaking up), it would have been a rout for the Congress and NCP which would have only got about 20 seats each—a situation that would’ve no doubt been disastrous for both those parties and which the NCP clearly didn’t desire.

The question is if the BJP would have preferred this situation to the current situation. The answer, in hindsight, is no.

Had the BJP and the Shiv Sena fought the elections together, it would have been under their earlier terms of engagement, which had the Sena as the senior partner. Given the massive mandate in their favour, and the massive mandate in the BJP’s favour as it has turned out, the BJP would have been kicking itself for not utilizing the opportunity to reset the alliance (notice that under the actual results, BJP and the Shiv Sena together still have a very comfortable majority).

What about if both alliances had stayed intact? Based on data from the 2014 general elections, and some early surveys, an opinion poll by ABP and Nielsen (mintne.ws/1yb1zek) had predicted that the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance would have got about 200 seats if both alliances had stayed intact (this was before there was any semblance of either alliance breaking up). The number looked massive and unrealistic, for the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance had to overcome a 12 percentage point swing over the Congress-NCP alliance.

The data above, however, shows that the survey was as correct as it could have been!

Given how the results have actually come out, the two alliances remaining intact would have been a lost opportunity for the BJP and the NCP, the erstwhile junior partners, and they would not have really preferred it, though the BJP would have come to power.

What of the last situation—the one where the BJP and the Shiv Sena would have broken up but the Congress-NCP alliance would have remained intact? Remarkably, the data above shows that in that case, the BJP and the Shiv Sena together would have still come to a majority, with the BJP getting twice as many seats as the Sena—a situation identical to what eventually happened.

Analysing pre-election stand-offs with the comfort of hindsight, it seems like the BJP was the first mover in terms of resetting its alliance with the Shiv Sena. They probably correctly predicted (hats off to analysts within the party who smelt the breeze) that they were much stronger than the Sena, and with 15 years of anti-incumbency against the Congress-NCP government, even a broken BJP-Shiv Sena alliance would get a majority. This led to the BJP calling off the alliance with the Sena, irrespective of the fate of the Congress-NCP alliance. Looking at the NCP’s payoffs (again in hindsight), it is possible that their decision to break their alliance came after it was clear that the BJP would break its alliance.

It is a wonder, again in hindsight, though that the BJP actually appeared to be prepared to fight only 130 or so seats, leaving the rest to its erstwhile alliance partner.

Finally, what does this mean for the two alliances in case they decide to come together again in the future? How will they distribute the seats in that case? Based on data from this election, we can see which was the stronger party in each alliance in each seat. The parties can do worse than allotting each seat to the party in the alliance that got more votes this election.

If the two erstwhile alliances come together again, based on data from these elections, the BJP should contest in 172 seats while the Shiv Sena should contest in 114 (there were two seats neither party contested in these elections). In the other alliance, the Congress should contest 161 seats and the NCP, 127.

In the last elections in 2009, the BJP had fought a paltry 119 seats (less than they won this time) and the Shiv Sena had fought 160. The relationship between the parties definitely needs to reverse in case they come together again.

As for the other alliance, in 2009, the Congress contested 170 seats while the NCP contested 113—these numbers are not very far from what we have found based on data from these elections.

The logical number for this alliance involves a shift of only about 10 seats from the Congress to the NCP. This shows us that the NCP’s attempt to reset the alliance was based only on sheer hope and not really borne out in the data. The BJP’s attempt to reset the alliance, on the other hand, looks like a masterstroke in hindsight.

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Published: 21 Oct 2014, 12:33 AM IST
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