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OPINION | Why the regional parties need the Congress
In a three-cornered race in a first-past-the-post system such as India’s, the regional parties will stay relevant only if there isn’t too much gap between the other two groupings or parties — in terms of seat share, and strike rate. In 2014, there was.
An enduring narrative that has built up in the run up to the 2019 parliamentary elections has been on the return of the relevance of regional parties which found themselves in the cold in 2014 and, to a lesser extent, in 2009.
That’s true to some extent, but it overstates the case and ignores several nuances.
The seat share (number of seats won as a proportion of all seats in the Lok Sabha) of all parties other than the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014 was the lowest since 1991, at 40%. Still, it was almost the same as it was in 2009 (40.7%) and 1998 (40.5%). That, and the fact that there has been no clear trend in the seat share of these parties since 1984, is telling. Their seat shares have ranged from a low of 23.2% in 1984 to a high of 48% just five years later, in 1989. Conclusion: 2014 and 2009 were outliers in statistical terms, but not by much.
Interestingly, the vote share of these parties in 2014 (49.2%) was the fourth highest since 1984 (there were nine elections between 1984 and 2014, both end years included). The highest was in 2009 when it was 52.6%. Again, there has been no clear trend in the vote share of these parties since 1984 that has ranged from a low of 43.5 to a high of 52.6. Conclusion: enough people voted for the regional parties in the parliamentary elections in 2014 and 2009.
It is interesting, though, that these parties saw their highest vote share, 52.6%, in a year (2009) when they saw among their lowest seat shares (40.7%). Conclusion: 2009, which saw the formation of a government in which the regional parties were more relevant and enjoyed significant power, was actually more of an aberration than 2014, which saw the formation of a government where the regional parties have almost no powers.
Strike rates present a clearer picture. As a group, regional parties usually have a lower strike rate — this is simply the seat share percentage by vote share percentage to show the efficiency with which a party is able to convert seats into votes — than the BJP in all elections starting 1989. They have a strike share higher than the Congress in 1989, 1999, and, of course, 2014, when the Congress’ strike rate was an abysmal 0.4. In 1996, the strike rate of these parties (.87) was almost the same as the Congress’ (0.9). To close the loop, the Congress registered its second lowest strike rate since 2014 in 1999 (0.7).
On the face of it, these numbers would seem to suggest a part-adversarial and part-symbiotic relationship between the Congress and these parties. Both 1989 and 1996 saw a coalition of so-called Third Front governments. But when the Congress’ strike rate fell sharply, as it did in 1999 and 2014, the BJP formed the government.
The numbers also highlight a characteristic of the BJP’s performance that is well known. The differentiation the BJP has managed to achieve as a party underlies these numbers as well; its strike rate is an indication of two things: it knows its areas of strengths and focuses on them; and its traditional support base is more loyal than that of most other parties’. To be sure — and this is also known — it is only recently that the BJP has started contesting as many seats as the Congress across India.
Two axioms fit the pattern of these numbers.
The first is on how political parties evolve and grow. As a party grows, its appeal increases, from one caste- or class- group to a broad coalition of caste- and class-groups. As this happens, it encroaches on, and if it is strong enough, takes over the turf of smaller regional parties. The resultant electoral jostling results, in many cases, in some sort of equilibrium, although in others, one side wins and the other is consigned to irrelevance. The Congress in Tamil Nadu and Bihar is a good example of that. As is the BJP, which grew from next to nothing in 1984 to part of an anti-Congress coalition (from the outside) to the head of such a coalition itself to the dominant force in Indian politics.
The BJP had become the dominant party across all states by the middle of 2018, with its appeal growing beyond its traditional base. In 2014, it achieved this by simply eating into the Congress’ share of seats. Between then and the middle of 2018, it continued to win elections, and in these, it ate into the share of regional parties as well. Indeed, in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, it and not the Congress will be the main opponent of the Biju Janata Dal and the Trinamool Congress in Odisha and West Bengal. This is true for the assembly elections too.
The second is simple maths. In a three-cornered race in a first-past-the-post system such as India’s, the regional parties will stay relevant only if there isn’t too much gap between the other two groupings or parties — in terms of seat share, and strike rate. In 2014, there was.
The axioms and the BJP’s pole position (at least till late 2018 and, perhaps, even now to some degree) explain why the Congress needs the regional parties and, more importantly, why the regional parties need the Congress.
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