How to read assembly election results today from the 5 states

Here are four charts that explain the larger takeaway of the assembly poll results that will be announced on Thursday

Election results for Punjab, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Manipur and Goa will be announced on Thursday. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is an incumbent in all states except Punjab. What will be the larger takeaway of these election results apart from the binaries of winners and losers? Here are four charts which try and answer this question.

Security personnel at a counting centre in Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur district on Wednesday. (PTI)

Has economic distress hurt the BJP?

These elections have taken place at a time of significant economic distress. Unemployment rates, especially among the youth continue to be high. Inflation, especially for essential commodities such as cooking gas, petrol-diesel and edible oils has been high and things are expected to become worse given the ongoing geopolitical disruptions. The despondency because of the economic situation can be clearly seen in RBI’s Consumer Confidence Survey (CCS) , which show that consumer sentiment continues to be significantly lower than pre-pandemic levels. Given the fact that the BJP had the burden of double incumbency – it is the ruling party both in the centre and states – the biggest question in these elections is whether economic distress will hurt its political fortunes. If the BJP manages to retain power in the states it is ruling, especially in Uttar Pradesh, where policies such as ban on cattle slaughter have created the menace of stray cattle, it will mean that voters have decided against punishing the BJP politically despite large-scale economic suffering. This will also underline the argument that economic distress per se – the inflation scenario is expected to get worse going forward – need not mean political headwinds for the BJP going forward.

Can identity overcome governance issues?

India’s historic record of social discrimination against numerically dominant but socio-economically underprivileged groups and the empowerment of these groups because of the universal franchise system has always made identity an important driver of electoral politics. In Punjab, the Congress placed a big bet on exploiting the social identity of Charanjit Singh Channi, a Dalit Sikh, when he was made the chief minister months before the state elections. Channi replaced Captain Amarinder Singh, who comes from the Jat Sikh community, the traditional landed and social elite in the state. In seeking to contest elections under Channi’s leadership the Congress was hoping to beat anti-incumbency with his Dalit Sikh identity. If the exit poll predictions of a big Aam Admi Party (AAP) victory turn out to be true, it will also mean that identity cannot be a substitute for governance in politics.

Can Mandal 2.0 challenge the BJP?

79 out of the National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA) 303 seats in the Lok Sabha come from the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. In these states, Mandal based parties; the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in Bihar and Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh are the main challengers to the BJP. While the BJP suffered a big upset in the 2015 polls in Bihar, when the RJD and the Janata Dal (United) formed a grand alliance along with the Congress, the alliance broke away in the aftermath of a big BJP victory in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh elections. In 2019, even though the SP and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) came together in an alliance, the BJP did not suffer major damage. In the 2021 elections, the SP tried to build coalitions with smaller caste-based parties and is hoping for an upper caste versus the rest polarization, best captured in the “85% versus 15%” statement of Swami Prasad Maurya, who defected from the BJP to SP just before the elections. If the BJP manages to retain power in Uttar Pradesh once again (as suggsted by opinion polls), it will strengthen the argument that Mandal politics cannot pose a challenge to the BJP in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

Is the BJP strengthening its hold on the North-East?

The BJP is part of the government in all north-eastern states except Mizoram and Sikkim. Even in these two states, ruling parties are part of the wider North-East Democratic Alliance (NEDA). This is one way of looking at the BJP’s current hold over north-eastern states and hides some of the party’s challenges in the region. The party won a majority of assembly seats only in the latest elections of Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura, although it has won close to a majority (47.6%) in Assam in both 2016 and 2021.

That the BJP thinks that Manipur is its next stop in the North-East for making a government on its own is evident from its approach to the elections. Despite needing the Naga People’s Front (NPF) and the National People’s Party (NPEP) for forming the government earlier, it did not ally with either. This suggests that the party wants to build an independent and distinct presence, at least in Manipur. Thursday’s results will show whether this attempt has been successful and whether the BJP is even stronger now in the North-East.