Survey findings explain why BJP retained power in four states and how AAP won Punjab?
Survey findings explain why BJP retained power in four states and how AAP won Punjab?
Two trends were observed in the elections to the five state assemblies. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) managed to secure another term in power in the four states where it held power. In Punjab, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has snatched power from the Congress. Did the fact that the BJP was in power both at the Center and in four states helped it retain power in those states? Did the voters of Punjab reject the claims of the ruling parties at the Center and in the state and support the third option? The CSDS-Lokniti survey in four states (no post-election study in Manipur) provides important clues to interpret electoral trends.
net satisfaction
It is clear that except in Punjab, voters were more satisfied with the central government than the state governments. In Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Goa, the net satisfaction of voters with the central government was much higher than the net satisfaction with the state government (Table 1). Net satisfaction with the Narendra Modi government at the Center was three times higher than that of the Yogi Adityanath government in UP, seven times higher than that of the Pushkar Singh Dhami government in Uttarakhand and 18 times that of the Pramod Sawant government in Goa. That the BJP came back to power, even though it changed its chief minister in Uttarakhand thrice in five years (and that the incumbent chief minister lost his constituency) is clearly due to the high level of satisfaction with the Center in the hill state. Is. Government. In Goa too, the apparent disenchantment with the state government was offset by both a high degree of satisfaction with the central government and a split in the anti-BJP vote. Thus, the credit for BJP’s victory in all these states goes to the Modi government rather than the state level functionaries. On the other hand, disenchantment with the ruling party at the Center (-43) and the State (-52) was clearly visible in Punjab. You benefited from this.
Three out of every four in the post-CSDS-Lokniti survey in UP and six out of every 10 in Uttarakhand and Punjab said that the party mattered more than the candidate at the time of voting (Table 2). This explains the strong support for the BJP in UP and Uttarakhand and for the AAP in Punjab. Furthermore, the tight race in Goa can be explained by the fact that nearly two-thirds of the respondents said that the candidate was more important than the party when deciding where to vote.
While the respondents cited unemployment and price rise as major problems, the BJP’s victory in UP, Uttarakhand and Goa can be explained by taking into account the beneficiaries of free ration and cash transfers. Close to nine out of every 10 respondents in Uttar Pradesh, three-quarters of respondents in Uttarakhand and six out of every 10 respondents in Goa said they were beneficiaries of free rations and cash transfers to bank accounts.
A linked development is the intensity of the blame on governments (Centre and states) for the deaths related to COVID-19 during the second wave of the pandemic. In Punjab, more than half of the respondents, in UP only a third of them, and in Uttarakhand, two out of every 10 respondents specifically blamed the government for this. In Goa, a little over four out of every 10 respondents specifically blamed the government. This probably explains the more lukewarm support given to the ruling party.
As our detailed analysis of the four states shows, the result was a combined product of the relatively high popularity of the central government, the positive impact of welfare schemes and, as in the case of UP, an intense religious polarization. Apart from these factors, a major factor was the effective bipolarity of competition in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Punjab. Without such a sharp bipolarity, Goa gave only a small advantage to the BJP.
Sandeep Shastri, Vice Chancellor, Jagran Lakecity University, Bhopal and National Coordinator of Lokniti Network; Sanjay Kumar is the Co-Director of Lokniti Program at CSDS; and Suhas Palshikar taught Political Science and is currently the Co-Director of the Lokniti Program and Editor-in-Chief of Studies in Indian Politics.