THE last Lok Sabha election which, if at all, could be called graceful enough for psephologists, was the 1999 Lok Sabha election. Most got the big picture right. However, the results of the 2004 elections surprised most analysts and pollsters and so did the results of the 2009 elections.

An anatomy of these two polls actually tells one how popularity and seat tallies have several mutating junctions between them and how the first past the post system has come to either excessively reward or penalize the contestants. A political formation could swing between extremes just in a matter of an election.

The vote to seat conversion is a clear indicator of the same, and it varies widely between elections. In 2009, the UPA polled 36.5% of the votes and won 262 seats. The NDA won 159 seats polling 25.2% of the votes. The Congress party scaled a huge 61 seats polling a mere two per cent votes more than what it had polled in 2004. It means that for every single percentage of extra votes the party added to itself 30 seats. An important metric to track is the seat to vote ratio, the conversion of votes to seats.

In 1999 the seat to vote share ratio for the Congress was 4.02, while in a span of ten years (in 2009) it increased to 7.2. For roughly the same percentage of votes in 1999 as in 2009, the party won 92 additional seats in 2009. Clearly, it points to a splintered opposition, a heavy conversion through focus on seats and optimal alliances in 2009. The states of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra adding up to a huge 130 seats, threw up a fragmented opposition that helped the Congress win as many as 58 out of the 130 seats at stake here. Each state had an upstart fracture the opposition vote, helping the Congress or its alliance – namely Chiranjeevi, Vijaykanth and Raj Thackeray. In the election that was held ten years prior to 2009, that is in 1999, the Congress party won just 16 seats in all these states put together.

A very important indicator that the party had almost made most of its base is the number of seats where the party was either first or second. In 1999 that number was 330, and it was 350 in 2009. Notably, the number remained almost the same. However, the party gained a huge 92 additional seats, indicating that not only did alliances add to the party’s vote share, but also a splintering opposition made it that much simpler for the Congress to win more seats. But the key is that the party had peaked in its utilization of the first past the post system.

The fact that the party peaked was most evident in Uttar Pradesh where it won a huge 21 seats for a vote share of merely 18.3% of the vote. The BJP with a tad lower vote share of 17.5%, won just half the number of seats. This was largely due to a quadrangular contest where the Congress had its votes concentrated in less than half the Lok Sabha seats in the state.

Other factors contributed to the high vote to seat conversion as well. A sharp bipolarity with a weakened opposition benefited the party in states like Uttarakhand, Delhi, Haryana and Rajasthan, yielding a handsome mandate to the Congress. Of the 47 seats in these states the Congress took all but five seats.

The peaking vote utilization points to the fact that this may not be easily replicated again. However, the vote to seat conversion obtained in 2009 is nowhere near the average vote to seat conversion of 7.8 that the Congress had pre-1977. In fact, in 1984, the vote to seat conversion of the Congress peaked at about 8.62, an indicator of a completely whittled opposition. After 1984 the vote to seat conversion of the Congress has been in steady decline, and a graph plot clearly suggests that 2009 was an exception.

 

A vote share of more than forty per cent helps obtain a conversion that is far higher than other elections as the outcome then becomes independent of the polarity of the contest. The following table is the vote to seat conversion for the Indian National Congress since 1984.

Starting at an all time high of 8.62 in 1984, the conversion of votes for the Congress has declined ever since, indicating a shrinking footprint of the party. Observe that after 1991, the ratio never crossed six until 2009. The 2009 election thus seems an aberration that yielded the party a number close to its 1991 tally of 244, but with a vote share nearly eight percentage points lower than the 1991 vote share. Certainly the Congress has peaked. The key question today is not just of descending the peak, but whether the vote to seat conversion for the party will bottom out to a far lower number.

 

How is the BJP placed in the vote to seat conversion debate? For the BJP the vote to seat conversion ratio has remained pretty much stagnant in the previous decade after scaling a high in the 1990s.

The formation of alliances holds the key to enhancing the vote to seat conversion for the BJP. Recollect that in the 2004 and 2009 Lok Sabha elections the BJP lost allies in a big way, drastically reducing its vote to seat conversion, while in the ’90s, the party had a very optimal alliance that utilized its vote share the best. Along with smaller parties, the number of BJP allies is now well over a dozen, and that may be taken as an indicator that the vote to seat conversion for the BJP may improve substantially in this election, and it could reach the average of its 1990s conversion (post-1996) – 7.6%.

The key questions therefore are, what is the least the Congress can go to and what is the maximum the BJP can head towards? If the least vote share that the Congress has ever had (25.8%) is combined with its least conversion, it would mean about 104 seats for the Congress, but at the maximum. If a conservative vote share of 21% were to be estimated for the BJP, it does not seem unrealistic that the party should have a base score of about 160 seats at a conversion rate of the 1990s. That would be the minimum.

 

Incumbency, polarity, and a lack of allies will hit the Congress. Today, other than Maharashtra, Punjab, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar the Congress is bereft of allies. Importantly, the party faces a decimated appeal in states like Andhra Pradesh that gave a roaring mandate to the Congress in the last election.

Typically, with a splintered opposition, it is possible to obtain a high vote to seat conversion. However, when your own vote share falls below a threshold, the vote to seat conversion drops dramatically. In Tamil Nadu for example, with the Congress contesting alone in 2014, the contest is multi-polar, but if the Congress does not cross a threshold of twenty per cent of the votes, it is unlikely to convert to seats. In 1998, the Congress went alone, polled about 5% of the vote, and ended up with a nil tally in the state. In the 2009 election, the Congress was part of a larger alliance, which being the largest in a multipolar contest had a very high vote to seat conversion. The Congress thus benefited by default.

Ditto in Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh – the polarity has gone up and a possible fall in votes below the minimum threshold could trigger a big fall in the seats for the Congress.

Incumbency in bipolar states worked in favour of the Congress last time. Therefore in Delhi, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan, there was a near clean sweep. The party won 33 out of the 37 seats at stake in these states. This time round the logic of incumbency is on the other foot and the Congress could end up at the other end of the spectrum.

With the BJP crossing a minimum threshold in most states, and with many more allies, the party is now set to scale up its vote to seat conversion. A combination of the party’s highest ever vote share of 25% and its highest ever conversion of 7.93 yields a seat share of about 195 seats. Clearly that seems the average suggested by most opinion polls.

The BJP’s vote share gains are, however, expected to be mostly in its strongholds, thereby leading to a slightly sub-optimal utilization of its vote. However, that would ensure that the Congress fails to make headway even in states where it has had a substantial vote base as most of these states, like Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan, see a direct BJP-Congress contest. With a well consolidated regional opposition leadership, the Congress now faces an uphill task in these states.

Amidst the melee of shifting alliances and ground defections, the vote to seat conversion metric offers a noise free technique to obtain a range of possible performance of established parties, while of course leaving space for contextual factors such as incumbency and popularity. Clearly the current election has a landscape that is likely to swing the Congress to the penalizing end of the range of the first past the post outcomes. However, what should be of concern to the Congress is the fact that this move has been accelerated by a depletion in its base that does not seem short-term. That could stabilize the vote to seat conversion ratio of the Congress at a new lower plateau. And that would make seat conversions even in future elections that much more challenging.