What worked for Nitish Kumar? Social coalition

The mandate for the JD(U)-BJP government has many firsts to it. For the first time in many years the term anti-incumbency has stood on its head. The vote share of the alliance ballooned from 36% in October, 2005, to 42% in October, 2010. This huge accretion of vote share along with a social base that cut across the spectrum yielded a handsome gain in seats from 143 to 206.

More than the quantity of accretion it is also the quality of the mandate that merits a diligent disaggregation. It cuts across gender, caste and geography painted on a canvas of economic contraction in the earlier part of this decade.

In the 1990 assembly election that awarded Lalu Prasad his first
government, the percentage difference between the male and female voter turnout was a stunning 17%. Some 70% of male electors voted as compared to 53%. In October, 2005, the difference in the turnout was 7.6%, with 50% men voting as compared to 42.4% women.

In this year’s elections, the differential swung to the other side. 55% women voted as compared to 51% men. Going by the conventional assumption that women voted for Nitish Kumar in greater numbers than men, this can be said to have provided a 1.5% to 2% headstart to Nitish in every constituency, assuming a uniform spread.

Based on 2009 Lok Sabha leads, this translates to 26 marginal seats changing hands. The final tally of 206 seats at the time of writing shows a gain of 29 seats from the Lok Sabha leads in 177 assembly constituencies in 2009. While avoiding an attempt to simplify the vote calculus by attributing the gains completely to the fairer sex, the point is that women have certainly contributed to the heightened seat share of the combine.

The NDA saw the highest gain in the Seemanchal region that till February, 2005, was a stronghold of the RJD combine. This is not only a minority-dominated region, it was also ravaged by the Kosi floods. The Kishanganj district had the highest turnout of about 57%, and the region saw the greatest swing in favour of the NDA alliance — 9% — with the NDA polling 47% votes in this region. This is as much as a response to the flood relief management as much as it is to the minority welfare schemes of the government. The NDA alliance won 60 of the 73 seats in this region.

An important pre-poll assumption that has been nullified to a great extent is that Muslim voters would have inhibitions casting their lot with the JD(U)-led alliance in a big way because of its partnership with the BJP. There are about 60 assembly seats where the concentration of Muslims ranges between 17% and 74%.

In another 50, Muslims are estimated to be between 10-17%. A handsome mandate where the alliance had a strike rate of 80% would not have been possible without very substantial support from Muslims. In a key Muslim-dominant seat such as Amour, the JD(U) polled more than 50% of the votes.

In many ways, the grand social alliance cobbled together by the Janata Dal in the 1990s has now been replaced by a numerically stronger and socially broader alliance with non-Yadav OBCs at its core.

Only when the state contest is more gubernatorial in nature do state parties perform significantly better in a state election as compared to a Lok Sabha poll. The vote share of the JD(U)-BJP combine was 42% and 4 % more than what it polled in the last Lok Sabha poll. Clearly it’s been a mandate for the leadership of Nitish, a hope for the future, a covenant that they trust. This was evidenced in more than one opinion poll where his popularity ranged from 54% to 66% as the first choice for chief ministership.

In many ways it was this endorsement that allowed victories for goons and their relatives from the NDA camp but brought defeat to most of those belonging to the Opposition.

Discomfited by the fact of the growing popularity of its chief ministerial candidate from the JD(U), the BJP seems to have put in a well-coordinated effort to make the most of the seats that it contested. Campaign reports suggest that every tall leader was given space in the election campaign, and the party focused on extensive ground campaigning. This has awarded the BJP a high strike rate of 85%.

To summarise, the strategy that has maximised yields includes an effective delivery system, a credible dialogue with the masses, and a leadership that is local and accessible. This ensures that the party has as broad a social coalition as possible. Perhaps a systematic method has been arrived at to not only to avert the curse of incumbency but also consolidate. With a ruling coalition being so organised, being in the opposition could be a curse. Pro-incumbency will be the new operative term in India’s political lexicon.