Parliamentary Poll 2019: How and What Has Happened? Four Significant Comments/Analyses

[Sukla Sen]

[This time, the ECI has, on its website, yet, rather intriguingly, not indicated the vote shares of the political parties nationally.

However, one of the comments reproduced below shows the share of the BJP as 37.4%.
That's a rise of 6% points (approx.) over its performance, last time, which, again, had seen a rise of 9.2% points over its performance in the preceding general election.
That's a steep graph.

This time, the BJP had lost, quite a few, state polls, not too long before this general election in which it had won in these states pretty handsomely.
Even if one concedes that factors affecting the outcome of a state poll and the national poll are not one and the same, it can hardly be denied that the BJP fortune has suddenly soared.
The causative factor can hardly be anything other than Pulwama-Balakot.
And, to be sure, this was the very theme song of Modi/Shah/BJP, during the poll campaign.
Of course, there'd be other factors as well.
But, plausibly, this is what predominated.
(Ref.: <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/greenyouth/77eqQ0bxf6U>.)

While the comments below explore how and what has happened, the far more important issue that we're faced with, right at this moment, is: What now???

These are some of the, profoundly disturbing, possibilities:

AA. Dislodging/dismissal of a few state governments may now be in the pipeiline.
BB. Attack on opposition parties, to demoralise and/or break them up by using carrots and sticks (ED/IT/CBI etc.).
CC. Further intensification of non-state physical violence.
DD. In terms of policy moves:
(i) An early roll-out of the NRC nationwide.
(ii) Mega sale of PSUs.
(iii) Trashing of environmental norms and safeguards.
(iv) Tightening the grip over the education infrastructure and institutions.
(v) Further defanging of watchdog institutions.
(vi) Attacks on civil society organisations.
(vii) More repressive laws, if felt necessary.

Of course, the regime need not be in a great rush, as regards all these.
Rather makes a hell lot of sense to go for the kill with a degree of caution.
One may also come across a magnanimous statement on the occasion of oath-taking, or whatever.
Even some peace overture towards Pakistan.
It always helps to confuse.
But, as regards dislodging the state governments, there'd be lot of pressure from the state leaders.

In any case, the regime is expected to move on the lines delineated above, sooner of later.
Before the next poll, left to itself, the regime would rid the country of any effective opposition.
That's the precise message encapsulated in the repeated shrill cries of "Congress-mukt Bharat!"
And, not only the political parties, the civil society organisations and dissenting individuals would be emasculated.

The following is, perhaps, worth a recall:

Viewed against its past track record, it becomes abundantly clear that the latest phase of doubtful moderation on the pan (read: part) of the BJP is nothing but a case of the proverbial wolf presenting itself in sheep’s clothing to lure the gullible.

Once they gain radically increased access to the levers of state power the real game will start. Not only will Ayodhya, Kashi and Mathura start picking up new momentum, it is quite possible, or rather likely, that from their bag of tricks even more unorthodox ones will start popping out. Prom (read: From) that point onwards, the script would be pretty predictable. Passions will be aroused. Khaki shorts and black caps will be out on the streets. The armed might of the state will back them up to the hilt. The BJP juggernaut will roll on, unstoppable. National ’reconstruction’, RSS style, will commence. And the death warrant for the concept, the dream, called India, which was shaped out of one of the most gigantic anti-imperial popular struggles of the 20th century, will be issued.

This piece seeks to be a small contribution to the large and growing body of efforts to confront the monster, scuttle the scary prospect and turn itself into a self-falsifying prophecy.

[Source: Economic and Political Weekly, February 7 1998.]

(Ref.: 'BJP's Real Agenda' at <http://www.sacw.net/article768.html>.)

That's, evidently, the concluding part of a piece penned by this observer, in the run-up to the 1998 general election.

Gujarat 2002 would follow in four years and the reign of Modi/BJP is continuing ever since, as a prelude to what we're faced with today, nationwide.

What deserves collective attention is what can still be done about it???

(Please visit the original sites of the comments at sl no. III. and IV. below, for the charts.)]

I/IV.
https://www.facebook.com/freethinker/posts/10157182374108609

Pratik Sinha
22 hrs ·

This is to request all those who are in denial and resorting to a variety of conspiracy theories to evaluate facts. Come out of your echo chambers. It might be comforting to hear things that confirm your bias, but it is not always the truth.

1. Was it a free and fair election? No.
2. Was the EC biased? Yes.
3. Did Media help BJP? Yes.
4. Did the enormous amounts of money help BJP? Yes.
5. Did BJP win elections because of EVMs or because the election was rigged? NO!

Quoting here former CEC Quraishi's tweet:

"Now 294 results out after counting approximately 10300 vvpat. Only one mismatch discovered in Andhra because of machine breakdown and replacement. EC trying to resolve the issue."

6. Were the EVMs magically replaced?

Every EVM has a unique id for the control unit and balloting unit each. Candidates are given the unique codes before the polling starts and they can cross-verify the unique code when it comes out of strong room for counting.

Please see this EVM FAQ. While you're at it, please look at the portion about randomization of EVMs as well. Do some reading before propounding theories about EVM.

https://eci.gov.in/faqs/evm/general-qa/electronic-voting-machine-r2/?fbclid=IwAR0TrEaT611Z42ucTKO7Su5JxOvlZz7W70sImFVJgMB5fbTFjXB0a6QMVA4

7. Can EVMs be hacked? Yes, but wait.

Any electronic equipment that runs a software can be hacked. Question is was it hacked or not? Your computer, phones, tablets - all are connected to the outside world in some manner or other - most often an internet connection. This makes them vulnerable to external interference, EVMs do not have any such connection (wireless etc). So, while they can be hacked, there is NO evidence that they were.

8. What were the EVM videos all about? Were the actual EVMs replaced by those seen in trucks? No.

These were unused EVMs. They should according to rules be transferred to strong rooms on the same day. But in some cases, there was a 24-36 hour delay. And there was no security in some cases. Not okay, but we have seen such laxity in things pertaining to the Government. But these were exceptions. The videos stopped after that because all transportation had been completed. There is an army of humans which is involved in the election process. If such blatant acts were carried out, in the world of mobile phones with high zoom cameras, you'd have seen evidence of the same.

9. Can EVMs be pre-programmed? Read below.

Again read the FAQ link given above.

Before the commencement of poll, the Presiding Officer demonstrates to the polling agents present that there are no hidden votes already recorded in the machine by pressing the result button. Thereafter, he conducts a Mock poll with atleast 50 votes in the presence of the polling agents and tallied with the electronic result stored in the CU to fully satisfy the polling agents to satisfy them that the result shown is strictly according to the choice recorded by them. Thereafter, the Presiding Officer will press the clear button to clear the result of the mock poll before commencing the actual poll. He then again shows to polling agents, by pressing 'Total' button that it shows '0'.

10. Are any non-BJP parties questioning EVM? No.

Multiple reports have shown how opposition parties kept an extremely tight vigil on strong rooms. If those who have actually lost the elections are completely mum on EVM, it is a fairly good indication that they are not doubting the integrity of EVMs.

11. Shouldn't the events of May 23 be evaluated? Yes.

Yes, most definitely. All of us are. But lets stick to facts. Facts at times are inconvenient, but facts are facts. Google is your friend. Please go ahead and read how elections are carried out in India.

If anyone wishes further clarifications, please comment and I'd be happy to expand this FAQ post with more details.

II/IV.
https://thewire.in/politics/election-results-2019-narendra-modi-wins?fbclid=IwAR2ekZXl11vN0NawDFgQUyoo04g29xBo2JTrplx7Fk0j7QarRe1XL6sXtgQ

Vijayi Modi? Yes. Vijayi Bharat? Not on Your Life.
The election results show Modi has overcome his poor track record in office, but the fact that he has done so with a heady cocktail of communalism and nationalism, obscene amounts of money, unstinting media support and pliant institutions is bad news for Indian democracy.

Vijayi Modi? Yes. Vijayi Bharat? Not on Your Life.
A BJP worker celebrating outside the party headquarters in Delhi. Credit: PTI

Siddharth Varadarajan

23/MAY/2019

With 300 seats and a vote share that is higher than the Bharatiya Janata Party polled in 2014, Narendra Modi has every reason to feel satisfied with the results of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

More than anybody else, he knows how this result was produced. His extremely well funded campaign carefully avoided any reference to the promises of development he had made five years ago and relied instead on stoking fears about Muslims in the minds of Hindus and marketing himself as the only Indian leader capable of defeating terrorism.

Modi blatantly used the paramilitary victims of the Pulwama suicide bombing as an electoral prop, stooping so low as to canvass for votes in their name. It helped that the principal opposition party, the Congress, did not know how to counter this cynical strategy.

At Wardha, Modi openly sought votes on the basis of religion from Hindu voters by claiming their faith had been maligned by the prosecution of Pragya Singh Thakur for terrorist offences. He ridiculed Rahul Gandhi for fighting from the Wayanad seat, “where the minority is the majority”, as if Muslims are not equal citizens of India.

These polarising statements were shown live on television and amplified across the country by the BJP propaganda machinery, ensuring that the poison spread far and wide. In Assam and West Bengal, this helped feed into the BJP’s toxic proposal to have religion-based citizenship for migrants from Bangladesh.

Also read: Are We in for a Foundational Shift in India’s Nationalist Imaginary?

When the Election Commission made it clear that it was not interested in pulling him up for these blatant violations of India’s campaign laws, Modi and BJP president Amit Shah went one step further and fielded Pragya Singh Thakur as the party’s candidate from Bhopal. Her candidature symbolised not just the valorisation of Hindu chauvinism but also of violence and terror against Muslims.

Her first public comment after being nominated was to endorse the November 2008 killing of the senior police officer Hemant Karkare (by Pakistani terrorists, ironically) because he had charged her with planting a bomb to kill Muslims. Her subsequent praise for Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin proved embarrassing enough for Modi to try and distance himself from her. Yet Modi carefully avoided making any criticism of the politics that Nathuram Godse represented. Like Pragya, he too has no time for Gandhi or his ideals; but his strategy is to co-opt and deploy Gandhi where possible, not try and justify his killing.

It would have been one thing for Modi to have won a clean fight, relying solely on his ‘accomplishments’, the public’s perception of them and their lack of faith in opposition leaders. That didn’t happen, perhaps because he knew it wouldn’t be enough and that some kind of nitro charge was needed. How is it possible for anyone to call the BJP’s victory in the election ‘Vijayi Bharat’ – as Modi wants us to do – when that means accepting Pragya Singh Thakur’s win from Bhopal as the ‘victory of India’? BJP apologists are now ‘predicting’ that Modi will disown her even more forcefully than he attempted to do just before the final phase of polling, but this makes no difference. Thakur may be cast aside the way Pravin Togadia was in Gujarat, or she may even become a minister. Modi’s aim is to inject a virus into the country’s bloodstream; once that purpose is served, the fate of the individual vector is of no consequence.

Three other aspects of Modi’s spectacular win ought to worry us. First, the use of money power on an unprecedented scale, lubricated by the new rules he himself wrote which prevent the public from learning the identity of the prime minister’s rich and powerful friends. It is these corporates who bankrolled the BJP’s lavish election campaign and advertising budget, including a 24×7 TV propaganda channel that came and went mysteriously without the Election Commission doing anything to restrain it from breaking the law. Since we don’t know who paid for the BJP’s campaign, it will be hard to pin down what the payback will be in terms of policies.

Also read: We Are Witnessing a Defining Moment in West Bengal’s Political History

Second, a major section of the media has been a willing accomplice in the marketing of the Modi cult and the over-selling of the government’s performance on its various ‘schemes’. Disproportionate time was given to Modi and Amit Shah’s rallies by private television channels. Beyond this, big media actively helped the BJP market its divisive and diversionary agendas pretty much throughout the past five years, vitiating the public sphere and helping to blunt critical assessment of the government’s failed policies. This section of the media served as a conduit for both the Sangh parivar’s communal messaging over the years – from ‘love jihad’ to Ayodhya – and the BJP’s exaggerated claims on the national security front.

Blatant lies by ministers – such as Nirmala Sitharaman’s claim that there had been no terrorist incident during Modi’s tenure – were allowed to pass unchallenged. No hard questions were asked about the security and intelligence failure at Pulwama, or about the government’s questionable response at Balakot – which led to the loss of an Indian MiG, the capture of a pilot and the killing of six air force personnel and a civilian when a helicopter was brought down by friendly fire.

Media which didn’t cooperate with the Modi government’s agenda found itself targeted with defamation suits, CBI or tax investigations and the like. Several journalists and editors lost their jobs. The country’s cyberlaws were routinely and wrongly invoked by party activists and pliant policemen across the country to create a chilling effect on social media – a source of criticism that is otherwise difficult to contain.

Third, the Election Commission’s functioning has been the most partisan in recent memory. Not only did the EC fail to act on blatant violations of the Representation of People Act and model code of conduct by Modi and the BJP but it also took various decisions that favoured the party – such as invoking Article 324 of the constitution to curtail the campaign in West Bengal on the grounds of urgent threat to law and order but then timing the curtailment to accommodate the prime minister’s rallies in the state.

Also read: Rahul Gandhi’s Big Failure Was to Not Promote Fresh Faces in the Congress

Taken together, what does a victory of this kind mean for India? To the extent to which it allows Modi and the BJP to claim everything they have done in the past five years has now been endorsed by the electorate, the stage could well be set for greater communalisation of the country, greater centralisation of decision-making, more capricious policymaking, greater leeway for big corporates and multinationals, greater hostility towards independent media and, of course, more intolerance towards dissidence.

During the campaign, for example, Union home minister Rajnath Singh promised more stringent laws on sedition. It is also clear that the Modi government’s war on institutions will now be taken to the next level. Two fortresses remain somewhat unbreached despite Modi’s efforts these past five years – the higher judiciary, and Centre-state relations, and this is where his attention will turn next. The economist Nitin Desai apprehends that Modi will use his renewed majority to try and give the Centre greater power to act as an ‘implementer’ at the state level, perhaps using the Finance Commission as a battering ram. As for the judiciary, it is certain that the BJP will make inroads over the next five years by influencing appointments.

It will take more than the lacklustre campaign the opposition put on to fight back against this disastrous agenda. The electoral machine Amit Shah has assembled cannot be fought at the tactical level with caste- or cohort-based alliances. The BJP’s strategy has been to break down the salience of caste allegiances and convert the members of all castes into ‘Hindus’. The earlier Mandal politics countered this ‘kamandal’ strategy with clever caste arithmetic but today this is no longer possible. If the BJP looks at voters as Hindus (and Muslims), perhaps the opposition has to appeal to the worker or woman or farmer or youth in them. But that is a debate for another day.

III/IV.
https://www.thehindu.com/elections/lok-sabha-2019/analysis-highest-ever-national-vote-share-for-the-bjp/article27218550.ece?fbclid=IwAR2o1c3EM89fRSnHlMiQFHfoVpqsbZWX1f2ugSKNrVIlhXMi5V_PerO6fJQ

Analysis: Highest-ever national vote share for the BJP

Srinivasan Ramani

MAY 23, 2019 16:06 IST
UPDATED: MAY 24, 2019 16:02 IST

BJP supporters celebrate the party’s victory at the BJP head office in Guwahati on May 23, 2019.   | Photo Credit: Ritu Raj Konwar

Here's a quick look at the vote shares of the party since the 1984 elections.
The Bharatiya Janata Party garnered 37.4% of the votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The NDA as a whole, received nearly 45% of the vote. This is the highest vote share received by the party nation-wide in any Lok Sabha election since the party was (re)formed in 1980.

Here's a quick look at the vote shares of the party since the 1984 elections. In previous elections, the party's earlier avatar, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh had contested elections either separately or merged within the Janata Party (in 1977 and 1980).

The BJP-led coalition (with the Shiv Sena, the Janata Dal (United), the Shiromani Akali Dal, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam among others) won a cumulative vote share of nearly 45%, which is higher than what the NDA got in 2014 — 38%.

In contrast, the Congress party failed to improve on its vote share from 2014 and gathered 19.5% of the total votes.

[Graph]
Flourish logoA Flourish data visualisation
 
The BJP and its allies have thus far not only increased their respective vote shares and seat shares from 2014, but also expanded their geographic reach in electoral success. Only the southern States, such as Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, have bucked the trend.

The dominant victory of the BJP and its allies — by repeating the 2014 win, and then some — suggests that the era of coalitions (and/or a central government with a relatively weak national party in power) determining the balance of power at Delhi has decisively come to an end. This period, which began in 1977 following the end of Emergency, extended till 2014 with the notable exception of the Congress rule (with PM Rajiv Gandhi at the helm) between 1984 and 1989.

We could now characterise the period when the BJP came to power in 2014 as the beginning of a new single-party hegemonic system in Indian politics that was akin to what prevailed since Independence during the days of the “Congress system”. The 2019 Lok Sabha election trends so far has clearly affirmed this.

IV.
https://www.livemint.com/elections/lok-sabha-elections/ten-charts-that-explain-the-2019-lok-sabha-verdict-1558636775444.html

Ten charts that explain the 2019 Lok Sabha verdict

3 min read . Updated: 24 May 2019, 07:13 PM IST

Team Plain Facts
India seems to be witnessing the rise of a new political order, with a broad-based Hindu alliance driving the growth of the Bharatiya Janata Party

The 2019 Lok Sabha verdict delivered on Thursday has been historic in more ways than one. Narendra Modi is set to become the first non-Congress person to be India’s Prime Minister for two consecutive five-year terms.

The Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appears set to win a comfortable majority on its own in these elections (the final tally will be available on Friday). After the successive victories of the Congress in 1980 and 1984, this will be the first time any party has won absolute majorities on its own in two successive Lok Sabha elections.

The BJP victory in 2019 has been driven by a sharp spike in its vote share. With roughly 38% of the total votes polled, the BJP’s vote share is only marginally lower than that of the Congress in 1989 (39.5%), the last time any party reached close to 40% vote share nationally.

The ruling party’s victory has been broad-based, gaining seats in most parts of the country, and across the rural-urban divide, cementing its pole position in Indian politics.


Ever since the advent of the coalition era in Indian politics since the late 1980s, the median win margins (median vote share difference between winning candidates and second-best candidates) had been on a secular decline across constituencies.

The BJP reversed that trend in 2014, driving up median margins across the country, and has continued to drive it upwards in the 2019 elections. From 16 percentage points in 2014, BJP’s median victory margin has jumped to 20 percentage points in 2019.

Overall victory margins (across parties) has widened from 14 percentage points in 2014 to 16 percentage points in 2019, driven primarily by BJP’s rising margins.





The BJP’s ability to secure ever-bigger victories seems to be linked to its ability to get more people out to vote. The 2019 elections saw the highest turnout on record, and that does not seem to have harmed the ruling party on aggregate.

Higher turnouts have sometimes—though not always—meant trouble for the incumbents in the past. But this time, at least in some parts, this may have worked for the ruling party.


The latest results also suggest that voters have made a clear distinction between local (or state-level) politics and national politics this time. One example is Odisha, where the assembly results differ considerably from the Lok Sabha results.

The other examples are from states which had swung towards the Congress in the most recent state assembly elections—Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.

After losing these three Hindi heartland states to the Congress six months ago, the BJP has swept all three states now.


And its losses in Uttar Pradesh seem to have been more than compensated for by gains elsewhere, particularly in the eastern parts of the country, where Modi held a large number of his rallies .


Overall, the BJP’s appeal seems to transcend the divides of caste, education, and affluence, data suggests. But there are some differences—with the BJP less successful in more educated constituencies.

In constituencies with high presence of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes (SCs/STs), the BJP is more popular than other parties, but in constituencies with high presence of Muslims, it is less popular. The BJP’s 2019 record is also more impressive in poorer constituencies than in the richer ones.

Overall, the BJP’s appeal seems to transcend the divides of caste, education, and affluence, data suggests. But there are some differences—with the BJP less successful in more educated constituencies.



In constituencies with high presence of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes (SCs/STs), the BJP is more popular than other parties, but in constituencies with high presence of Muslims, it is less popular. The BJP’s 2019 record is also more impressive in poorer constituencies than in the richer ones.



Notwithstanding these differences, the BJP’s remarkable victory appears to have been based on a broad-based Hindu social alliance cutting across caste and class.

In his 1970 book, Politics in India, the renowned political scientist Rajni Kothari had coined the term ‘Congress system’ to describe the party’s ability to assimilate diverse social groups and even dissidents within its fold.

We may be witnessing the rise of a new ‘BJP system’ in Indian politics today.

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