Performance and Expenditure of National Political Parties in GE'04

The adjacent table provides the performance of major national parties during the last General Elections in 2004. Bahujan Samaj Party cannot technically be called as a national party inspite of it having contested in as many as 435 states but managing to secure seats in only 19 of those 435 constituencies. A 4.36% winning scenario. BJP managed to secure 138 seats while INC managed 145 winning constituencies.

A look at the state-wise performance of these major parties demonstrate the grip each party has on the political atmosphere. BSP secured all of its 19 seats from the state of Uttar Pradesh alone. A report here says that with an eye on the national stage BSP will be fielding candidates from as many as 500 constituencies, a figure that is higher than both Congress(>400) and BJP(430).

BSP’s numbers game would seem to be working if recent state elections are any indication. According to a study by Marketing and Development Associates (MDRA), a New Delhi-based research consultancy, the party’s vote share rose from 4.5% to 6.5% in Chhattisgarh; 4.8% to 11% in Madhya Pradesh; 2.5% to 14% in Delhi; and from 3.2% to 7.6% in Rajasthan. While the later figures are based on the November 2008 assembly elections in these states, the earlier ones are based on the 2004 general election.

Seems like BSP's strategy of Social Engineering is about to take off in the 120/543 reserved seats including 79 for SC's which comprises the prime vote bank of the party. Of these, 17 seats are in Uttar Pradesh alone. BSP is targeting a vote percentage of about 10% of the total up from 5.33% in 2004 comprising mainly of the Dalit vote bank. Mayawati has aspirations to become the Prime Minister of India and would be instrumental in leading the Third Front post-elections if it manages to do just that. In contrast Samajwadi Party managed to secure 4.32% of the total votes although it won 36 seats (17 more than BSP) in the last General Elections. BSP is hoping to convert the higher vote percentage into seats for a greater say in the national politics.  

Money Power in Indian Polity (Source)

"I have come to the conclusion that muscle power is less harmful than money power. One could silence the muscle power but money power is really a great blot," CEC Gopalaswami has said.

And there are reasons for the EC to be worried. The Income Tax returns filed by 21 political parties show the sheer amount of money at play.The total money spent on elections in 1991 was Rs 359 crore which rose to Rs 597 crore in 1996, Rs 666 in 1998, Rs 886 crore in 1999 and Rs 1,300 crore 2004.The assets and incomes of the political parties, too, have been growing phenomenally.

Two major regional parties Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) lead the tables. The Samajwadi Party registered an average 41 per cent growth annually in its assets from 2002 to 2006.In 2002 SP had assets worth Rs 13.86 crore, which grew to Rs 13.91 crore in 2003, Rs 26.56 crore in 2004, Rs 38.01 crore in 2005 and reached Rs 77.07 crore in 2006.

Mayawati's BSP's assets grew at over 32 per cent per year. It was Rs 10.92 crore in 2002, Rs 39.39 crore in 2003, Rs 43.69 crore in 2004, Rs 43.10 crore in 2005 and Rs 44.06 crore in 2006.

The growth of the Congress and the BJP is best reflected in the income figures. Congress' aggregate income grew by Rs 631 crore from 2001 to 2006 out of which Rs 343.51 crore were spent on elections.In 2002 Congress' income was Rs 61.50 crore, in 2003 it was Rs 69.56 crore and grew to Rs 153.04 crore in 2004, while in 2005 and 2006 the income was Rs 222.07 crore and Rs 124.93 crore respectively.

While the BJP's aggregate income rose by over Rs 327 crore out of which Rs 238 crore were spent on polls.In 2002 BJP's income was Rs 44.22 crore, in 2003 it was Rs 49.46 crore and grew to Rs 91.49 crore in 2004, while in 2005 and 2006 the income was Rs 104.12 crore and Rs 38.34 crore respectively.

"The kind of political system that we have today is forcing the candidates to spend this kind of money. This has led to a situation where our entire democracy has become a tamasha (drama)," Arvind Kejriwal, founder of Parivartan, said.

The 2 major political parties alone account ofr an expenditure of about 600 crore rupees for the elections. Include the regional parties and the numbers are staggering to say the least. A report in The Hindu here says:

The Election Commission of India, political parties and candidates will incur an expenditure of over Rs. 10,000 crore during the three-month-long run-up to the Lok Sabha elections. The expenditure incurred in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections was Rs. 4,500 crore.

Just a couple of months away from the 15th General Elections of the largest democracy in the world, the biggest challenge facing the Election Commission is tackling the lethal combination of muscle and money power in Indian polity.It's an open secret now that the actual amount spent by political parties on election campaign is much higher than the details they `officially' submit with the election commission. While in an assembly election average spending by a candidate is said to be about Rs 50 lakh, in a parliamentary election, per constituency expense on election campaigning is about Rs 2 crore. (Source)

Elected Representatives? Think again.

I am reproducing here an article that appeared on DNA a few days back. The data here was taken from the government website Press Information Bureau. It shows the pathetic state of Indian elections wherein candidates win even when they obtain a voting percentage as low as 10%. Hard to digest that our Members of Parliament are selected with just over 10% of the voters mandate. The picture gets grimmer still when you consider the people who didn't turn out to vote but were registered electorates. 

How many votes does a candidate need to get elected to the Lok Sabha? If election commission statistics are anything to go by, a little over 10% of the electorate in a constituency.

This is especially true in constituencies where there are multi-cornered contests, a trend that is increasing by the Lok Sabha. Most noticeable is the case of Uttar Pradesh (UP), which sends a whopping 80 members to parliament. Almost all seats in the state saw three- or four-cornered fights in 2004, with less than 50% of the electorate exercising its franchise.

A similar trend was witnessed in several other constituencies in north and central parts of the country, where polling percentage hovers around just 50. The increasing fragmentation of Indian politics doesn't augur well for the basic first-past-the-post (FPTP), or simple majority, concept of voting. This has been worrying constitutional experts and national review committees such as the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (NCRWC), which submitted its report in 2002.

The situation is acute in states where three- or four-cornered fights have become a norm. The explicit aim of FPTP is to promote two-party politics. But the increasing number of regional parties is leaving a majority of voters without representation in the Lok Sabha.

Many, however, argue that the fragmentation is representative of India's diversity and is good for a federal government. In Basti, Mohanlal Ganj and Robertsganj constituencies of UP, candidates got less than 12% of the total votes in 2004. In the state's 59 constituencies, winners polled less than 20% of the total votes.

The fact that voting percentage was less than 50 in UP and other big states such as Madhya Pradesh makes one thing clear, that a winning candidate needs to concentrate only on a group, say a caste or a religion, or a couple of groups (vote banks) that may add up to about 20% of the total votes in a constituency.

A candidate campaigning selectively and winning support of one or two groups could win, even if majority vote is against him, because those opposed to the eventual winner cast their votes with several candidates.

In 2002, NCRWC admitted this, saying, "The representative character of the representatives itself becomes doubtful and their representational legitimacy is seriously eroded. In many cases, more votes are cast against the winning candidates than for them."

The election commission recently pointed out, "While in Tamil Nadu on most seats the winning candidates secured over 50% of the votes polled (34 of 39 seats), in Uttar Pradesh, only nine of the 80 seats were won by this margin.

"In Andhra, 29 of the 42 seats were won by over 50% of the votes cast, while in Bihar, only 11 winners could get over 50% votes."

In states such as West Bengal, Rajasthan and Orissa, over 50% of winners polled over 50% of the votes cast. These states were followed by Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, which sent a noticeable number of candidates with over 50% vote share.

Delhi had the distinct identity of sending all its seven MPs with over 50% votes, while only one in neighbouring Haryana's 10 Lok Sabha members could cross the mark. 
In the northeast, the democracy is actually most vibrant in this context. In Mizoram, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, all Lok Sabha winners pocketed over 50% vote share.

In the 14th Lok Sabha, 324 of the 543 (almost 60%) winning candidates couldn't muster a 50% vote share. Considering the fact that in several states less than 50% votes are polled, 60% of the winners represented only a quarter of the voters in their constituencies. Meaning, a majority of voters are not directly represented in parliament.

Some interesting trivia on GE'09

In line with the flavor of the season namely the upcoming general elections I intend on writing about this and researching a lot more on this. I found some really interesting trivia on a government site.I am reproducing the same here for all to see. Please note the number of winning women candidates in the last elections as also the number of political parties(215) that contested the last elections. Electorates are people who have registered themselves as bona fide voters while voters are the people who actually turned out to vote. 

 

•  671,487,930 electorates  registered in the electoral rolls. 

•  5435 candidates contested the elections for which 6,87,402 polling stations set up. 

•  3050 candidates  represented 215 political parties and 2385 candidates were Independents. 

•  Polling station with least no of electors: Only ONE voter in Polling station No. - 29;(Dharampur) in Miao Assembly segment of Arunachal East parliamentary constituency . 

•  Parliamentary Constituency with Largest Number of Electors -3368399(Outer Delhi) 

•  Parliamentary Constituency with Lowest Number of Electors – 39033 (Lakshadweep) 

•  Maximum contestants in a parliamentary constituency - 35 (Madras south) 

>>35 contestants from a single constituency!! No wonder the average percentage of votes the winners get lie somewhere around the 40%-50% region. So, in effect the majority of MP's that finally get the coveted seat haven't received the 50% mandate of the people. Too many cooks spoil the froth!!

•  Maximum Women contestants in a state - 61 (UP)  

>>Behenji ne mahilaon ki samasya ko samjha aur unhe seats diye. kitnon ne jeeta yeh alag baat hai.

•  Minimum women contestants in a state -1 (Goa)  

•  Maximum women winners - 7 (UP)  

•  Out of 543 elected MPs, 45 were women.  

>>why do they need women reservations in the parliament? 45/543 is a satisfactory number given the mayawati's(behenji), the mamta bannerjee's(didi) and the jayalalitha's(amma) sheer size they alone account for the rest.

•  Maximum age of the candidate-94 years (Ramchandra Veerappa in Bidar, Karnataka)  

>>vow!! look at the lust for power!!

•  Minimum age of the candidate - 25 years (Many).  

>>hmm...some relief there are some who would want to see some change for a change.

•  Maximum age of the winning candidate-94 years (Ramchandra Veerappa in Bidar, Karnataka)  >>and to think he won!!

•  Minimum age of the winning candidate-26 years Sachin Pilot in Dausa (Rajasthan)  

>>genetic lineage and family fiefdom. am not saying he din't deserve this but youth winning a seat in India seems improbable at the very least. 

•  Maximum votes secured - Sajjan Kumar outer Delhi - 855543  

•  Minimum votes secured - Ashok Kumar chandni chowk- 45  

>>lol..his family members and friends got this many I suppose!!

•  Minimum votes secured by a winner - 15597 votes (Lakshadweep).  

•  Minimum margin, Lakshadweep, 71 Votes  

•  Average age of the elected MPs is 52.63 Years.  

>>ohh really...!! Thats not that bad is it?

Given the heat of the situation I would want to concentrate my crappy brain on this dance of democracy. Expect more of such posts in a very short time.