Congress did badly by all accounts in polls. They need to introspect, have a better strategy if they want to be a credible political opponent to BJP first, before dreaming back of being the popular national party.... On the other hand, BJP did very well in Assam - the only state it won. However, after the results media and TV channels echoed of 'Congress mukt Bharat' and made a mockery of the party. TV Spinmasters gave their take, but was Congress's loss, hiding the BJP's poor performance as well? Nobody spoke of how poorly BJP did on the balance.... So does BJP have as much to rejoice? Here's an article that's obective and an informative read..... and a different take on what's popularly believed.
Hey, did you get it right?
http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/extraordinaryissue/hey-did-you-get-it-right/
Last week, like everyone else, I eagerly watched the exit polls and stayed glued to the TV when the election results were being announced. It appeared clear from what those on the screen were saying, that the BJP had won the polls hands down, the Congress had not only been defeated but totally crushed. Saffron was partying, euphoric. While glum-faced Congressmen were too bewildered to even cogently argue their case. In fact, anchors and analysts of different channels kept asking if the Congress had any political future left at all.
The BJP’s spokespeople were their usual selves in victory: smug, over confident, a tad boastful. The Congress sounded like a sad, routed lot. They had no explanations, no defence worth listening to. It seemed as if the Grand Old Party was all ready to lie down and die. No one was kind to it. No one believed it had any chance of recovering lost ground in the future. Some of my friends called to ask why Prashant Kishor, the current toast of Delhi’s political elite, was still hanging around 10 Janpath when the entire nation knew the Congress had no chance of recovering lost ground in the coming UP or Punjab elections. In fact, stories in the media were gaining ground that he is at odds with the Captain in Punjab and with the party’s existing guard in UP, both openly resenting his interventions. I even saw an article online that questioned where he was getting all the money from, to pay his staff, do ground-up research, and fund future campaign strategies.
Like everyone else, I soon got tired of hearing the same homilies on every news channel. So I flicked the remote and went on to watch a movie instead. One I had seen seven times before. Then came the magazines on the weekend, asking the same questions and proffering the same answers. But now I got to see some interesting stats as well. The five states that had gone to vote had a population of 22 crore, I discovered, of which 17 crore were voting for 824 assembly constituencies.
The winning team, BJP fielded 661 candidates and won 64 seats. This meant they had a success ratio of 9.7%. The Congress, who lost, fielded 341 candidates and won 115 seats, notching up a success ratio of, ahem, 33.7%.
Both parties had very little to do in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu where the TMC and the AIADMK swept the polls. In West Bengal, however, the Congress managed to win 44 seats (pushing back the Left to third place) and the BJP, 3. The Congress got 12.3% of the votes as against the BJP’s 10.2%. In Tamil Nadu too, the Congress won 8 seats, the BJP none. The Congress’ vote share was 6.5% as against the BJP’s 2.8%. The Congress had contested 41 seats while the BJP contested all 234, the same as the AIADMK which won 134 seats.
Now, let’s look at Kerala. Here the Left Front won, continuing the voters’ revolving door policy of voting in the LDF after a UDF rule and the UDF after a LDF rule. The Congress in Kerala won 22 seats with a vote share of 23.7% while the BJP won only 1 with a vote share of 10.5%.
Assam is the only exception to this trend. Here, BJP won 60 seats out of 126 with a vote share of 29.5%. Congress won only 26 seats with, believe it or not, a higher vote share of 31%. This means Congress won less than half the seats that the BJP won, despite a 1.5% higher vote share: a curious phenomenon.
Also, curiously, despite all the hoopla, the actual fact is Assam is the smallest of all the four states that voted. It sends only 14 MPs to the 545 member Lok Sabha, slightly over 2%. West Bengal sends 42 MPs to the Lok Sabha. Tamil Nadu sends 39. Kerala, 20. (Puducherry is a Union territory.)
Interestingly, in Puducherry, the Congress won 15 seats. The BJP, none. These figures leave me a bit confused. The BJP and the Congress went to five assembly polls. The BJP smacked the Congress out of the field in one (where the Congress actually got a higher vote share) and in all the other four states, both the national parties underperformed. But the Congress got more vote share, more seats. You can perhaps say the BJP broke into a few territories and you won’t be wrong but no one got decimated, no one lost the plot. Just as neither of these two national parties appears to have grabbed any great advantage. The TMC and the AIDMK did. And to a certain extent, the Left got its mojo back.
This is the future. It’s not about numbers. It’s about spin. Glorious, blazing spin. That’s why Prashant Kishore is in so much demand. Other spinmeisters, I am sure, will soon enter the fray. They will take any outcome and spin it such that you will never know who won, who lost, and who stayed exactly where they were. It’s called the art of the flummox.
And the numbers....