If the India Ahead-Lokniti-CSDS results and the Bihar polls are to be believed, the 2020 elections were the ones that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) lost and this is exactly what could have happened. The results of the post-poll poll, released on Monday, have been shared with HT by India Ahead.
The NDA started the campaign with a six percentage point advantage over the Great Opposition Alliance or Mahagathbandhan (MGB), according to the Lokniti pre-poll survey that was conducted from October 10-17. The NDA comprises the Janata Dal (United), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and two smaller parties, namely; the Hindustan Awami Morcha-Secular (HAM-S) and the Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP). The MGB has Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Congress and the three left-wing parties.
As the elections progressed – they were held in three phases on October 28, November 3 and November 7 – this advantage was transformed into a deficit of three percentage points against the MGB, shows the post-survey survey that is performed from October 29 to November 9. This three percentage point difference in vote participation could generate a large difference in seats for the two alliances. The poll expects the MGB to finish with 131-139 electoral districts (AC), while the NDA is expected to get 92-100 AC. The halfway mark in the Bihar mount is 122.
It is necessary to underline that these are the survey findings, not the final results. Furthermore, even if the polls make the voting quotas correct, conversions from voting quota to seat quota in a “first after post” system can often be treacherous.
If the MGB were to win this election, the credit should go to Tejashwi Yadav. As someone who only contested his first election in 2015 and ended up becoming a deputy for Nitish Kumar; seeking a fourth consecutive term as prime minister, Tejashwi gained a massive 13 percentage points in popularity as the desired CM to beat Nitish Kumar by four percentage points. The latter was four percentage points ahead of Tejashwi in the pre-survey poll. Nearly three-quarters of voters – 73% to be precise – made a decision during the course of the campaign, and the MGB had a four percentage point advantage over the NDA among them.
That the MGB did a better job of persuading the undecided voter is obvious from the fact that it did much better in attracting voters who did not vote on the basis of party loyalty. While the split of voters who voted on the basis of party is 44% to 42% in favor of the NDA, the MGB had a clear advantage over the NDA among voters who voted on the basis of candidates (34% -23%) and other factors (35% -26%).
The survey showed that both the JD (U) and the BJP paid heavily for local anti-incumbency. In the Autonomous Communities where the JD (U) or the BJP had a seated MLA, 42% and 39% of the voters expressed strong dissatisfaction with them. These numbers were much lower for the RJD (31%) and Congress (20%).
The MGB also appears to have done significantly better at getting supporters of each to vote for the alliance’s candidates. 80% and 89% of traditional congressional and RJD supporters reported voting for the MGB in the post-poll poll. These numbers were 47% and 83% in the pre-survey survey. Synergy within the NDA deteriorated over the course of the campaign. 66% of traditional BJP voters had said they would vote for JD (U) during the pre-poll poll. This number dropped to 53% in the post-survey survey. This also suggests that many BJP supporters may have voted for the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), which had mostly run candidates against the JD (U). The LJP is likely to end up with a vote share of 7% and 4-8 BC.
Many of the comments on these elections have pointed out that the elections were conducted on issues of class and development rather than caste. The survey shows that the class complements more than the substituted caste. The MGB, through its promise to give a million jobs to the government, was able to exploit both caste and class in its favor.
While employment (23%) was the second most important issue for voters after development (36%), the MGB had a whopping 32 percentage point advantage over the NDA among those who thought unemployment was the most important issue . This advantage was only one percentage point in the pre-survey survey. The massive tailwind of the jobs promise allowed the MGB to overcome the headwinds of the NDA spikes in the jungle. The MGB was 27 percentage points short of the NDA among voters who thought development was the top issue in the pre-vote poll. This was reduced to 14 percentage points in the post-survey survey.
The survey also shows that the MGB’s success is rooted in a massive consolidation of its traditional Muslim-Yadav support base and small but not insignificant gains among other subaltern communities such as Dalits and Non-Yadav OBC. The MGB had the least support among the upper castes. However, it is necessary to underline that the MGB increased its support among all sections during the course of the campaign.
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