Will a low turnout affect the BJP?

The low turnout may affect any party depending on who abstained from voting. However, the chances of low turnout affecting Congress is very low. Particularly in the last four phases of the election where we can see an optimistic positive wave in favour of Congress. Congress bottomed up in 2014 & 2019 winning its lowest vote share ever in the most hopeless situation. In 2014 Congress won a 19.31% vote share and in 2019 it was 19.49%. These are the voters who doggedly stuck with Congress in the most hopeless situation despite knowing that there was no chance of Congress winning. Not only that they came out and voted for Congress. If they voted for Congress in an utterly hopeless situation, they will definitely vote for Congress this year since the picture is much brighter for Congress now. Congress has already bottomed out, things can not be any worse for Congress. Congress has come out of its worst phase. Now it can only be better for Congress and it is going to be better.

A senior journalist and two former judges have written to PM Modi and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to participate in a public debate on the ongoing Lok Sabha elections. File | Photo Credit: Agencies

In contrast, BJP’s bottom-out situation was in 2009. So come what may Congress's vote share can not go down unless some big-scale manipulation happens. On the other hand, BJP’s vote share has gone up 37.36% in 2019 from 31% in 2014 and 31% in 2014 from 18.8% in 2009. BJP won 22.16% vote share in 2004. And BJP won 23.75% vote share in 1999. So we can say that BJP bottomed up to its lowest vote share of 18.8% in the last two and half decades. Even in 1991, the BJP won 20.07% vote share. BJP secured a 20.29% vote share in 1996. And in 1998 BJP secured 25.59% vote share. This is a three-and-a-half-decade dissection of BJP vote share.

So we can safely say that the BJP’s bottom-up level is almost the same as that of Congress at around 19–20%. Both BJP and Congress vote share will not go below this level. We can safely consider BJP’s core voter strength at around 25% max. That means over the last 10 years BJP has gained 12–15% of voters who were sitting on the fence. Who are these 12–15% voters? Let me go one step ahead in dissection.

Let’s consider the combined vote share of Congress and BJP which was around 51% in 2014. It increased to 57%. That means there has been a consolidation of votes in favour of two major parties and the regional parties were the losers since Congress didn’t lose the vote share. Interestingly the combined vote share of Congress and BJP has always been in the same vicinity. In 1991 it was 56%, 49% in 1996, 51% in 1998, 52% in 1999, 49% in 2004, 48% in 2009, 51% in 2014 and 57% in 2019.

The above dissection propagates three facts. 1. The highest consolidation in favour of the two biggest parties has been 57% and we have achieved this in 2019 close to the picture back in 1991 when the consolidation level was 56%. 2. And in 2019 BJP achieved its highest vote share of 37.36% in the last 45 years. 3. As against in 2014 & 2019 Congress scored its bottom-low vote share of 19%. Whereas Congress secured 36.40% vote share in 1991, 28.82% in 1998, 28.3% in 1999, 26.53% in 2004, and 28.55% in 2009.

So it is practically not impossible for Congress to win an additional 10% vote share to take it to around 29% from the 19% level in 2019. If we consider maximum vote consolidation of around 56–57% in favor of Congress + BJP and Congress consuming 29% vote share then BJP will be left out with around 28% vote share. Congress has systematically won over 25% vote share for 20 years from 1991 till 2009. And in these 20 years, the BJP has always been lower than 25% vote share at around 22%. Here I am talking about the core voter strength of both parties. Even if we consider that Modi has added another 5% to its core voter strength, it would hardly take it to 27–28% who will vote for BJP come what may.

Now there is a drop of around 5% turnout. I consider them to be the fence voter because the core voters would turn up to vote to make their party win. The entire drop could come from the BJP’s share. I have already said that over the last 10 years, BJP has gained 12–15% of voters who were sitting on the fence before 2014. So BJP’s vote share can straightway come down to around 32% from 37%. However, this may not change the vote consolidation in favour of BJP & Congress. It was 57% in 2019. In fact, this time the vote consolidation may go up to 60% from 57% since the fence voters stayed away and voting is expected to be decisive.

So out of this 60% if BJP gets a vote share of 32% then the balance of 28% will be left for Congress. The battle between NDA and the INDIA block could be very close this time. And this is considering Modi & BJP remaining as strong as in 2019. In 2019 Modi & BJP was supported by Pulwama & Balakot. This time there is no Pulwama and no Balakot. So if BJP loses a few percentage points for not having any Pulwama effect the game could be really interesting.