How did BJP remain far from majority? This is how voters changed sides in Lok Sabha elections, understand from these figures

keep turning

If four out of 10 MPs are elected from a different party than the previous election, isn’t that a change? But this happens in practically every election. For example, the BJP got only 21 more seats in 2019 than in 2014 and the Congress got just 8. Still, it is important to note that 187 constituencies, or a staggering 34.4 per cent of the Lok Sabha seats, elected MPs from a different party in 2019 than in 2014. For example, the number of seats held by Bengal’s current ruling party, the TMC, in 2021 remained largely unchanged from the previous election, as the BJP completely replaced the Left and the Congress as the opposition in the state. However, the real poribortan (change) went beyond this. 129 out of a total of 292 constituencies, or 44 per cent, saw winners from a different party than in 2016.

Similarly, when the DMK-led coalition returned to power in Tamil Nadu in 2021, there was a change in 111 out of 234 assembly seats, or 47.4 percent. In 2021, the winners were from different parties compared to 2016.

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The proportion of people who changed their voting choices is difficult to measure. The BJP’s vote share fell by only 0.8 per cent in 2024, while the Congress’s overall share increased by only 1.8 per cent. The SP’s vote share increased by 2 per cent. Perhaps a fraction of a percentage point in the vote share of the majority of other parties shifted in the other direction. Adding them, of course, would mean that, at most, 10-12 per cent of the country’s voters changed their voting choice.

Understanding the situation

If you add up the percentage of vote shifts for each political party in each state, you will get a large proportion of shifting votes. If you repeat the process for each constituency, the number will go up further. Additionally, if the data from all the EVMs in the country is combined with the results of previous elections, one can get a lower limit on the percentage of votes that have shifted. However, this will only be a ‘lower limit’ because there are countless instances in which one voter moved from party A to party B, some other voter moved from party B to party C. Similarly a third voter moved from party C to party A, leaving the total count unchanged. Additionally, some old voters drop out and some new voters enter the democratic practice. Thus, the dynamics are also affected.

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keep on rolling

The percentage of floating voters should be quite significant. Also, how did the vote share of the Congress fall from 28.5 per cent in 2009 to around 19 per cent in 2014? In this regard, Bengal is a prime example. The Left Front won an incredible 37 per cent of the vote in 2006 and maintained a handsome 30 per cent share even after Mamata Banerjee routed them in 2011. But, by 2021, the Left’s percentage has fallen to less than 5 per cent, and in 2024 it is 5.67 per cent. So, one estimate is that more than 50 per cent – possibly 60 per cent – of all voters are floating voters, meaning they are open to changing their voting preferences. In fact, a 2014 CSDS study also concluded that 43 per cent of Indian voters go with the ‘wind’.

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Global impact

What about other countries? According to Linda Killian’s 2012 book The Swing Vote: The Untapped Power of Independents, the largest voting bloc of the US electorate is Independents, at 40%. These voters occupy a wide range of political and ideological space and have influenced the outcome of every election since World War II. And their numbers are increasing. According to the British Election Study, British voters are also ‘floating’. In the three elections between 2010 and 2017, 49% of UK voters did not vote for the same party. However, 43% of voters switched parties between 2010 and 2015. It makes sense that the actual percentage of floating voters would be higher because a floating voter may not necessarily have supported another party. Political parties are fully aware of this. If not, who would they target in their election campaigns? Therefore, the bread of democracy must be constantly turned. The higher the flame, the more often it has to be turned. This is all to prevent burning. The wind can be felt, or it can be spectacular. But change always blows in the wind of democracy.
(The author is Professor at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata)