High turnout in Assam may not be a vote for BJP

There is a belief amongst members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that high voter turnout in the recently-concluded Assembly elections in Assam will go in their favour on May 19, the day of counting. Assam registered a massive 84 per cent turnout — an overall increase of nine per cent compared to the previous Assembly elections. Given the verdict in the Lok Sabha elections, which also saw a high voter turnout, this gives the BJP and its supporters good reason to believe that they are close to forming the government in Assam.

A higher turnout in 2014 Lok Sabha elections did benefit the BJP enormously. The turnout increased by 15 per cent in 70 Lok Sabha constituencies of which the BJP and its allies won 67 seats — a success rate of 96 per cent. In another 145 Lok Sabha constituencies, the turnout increased between 10-14 per cent and of these the BJP and its allies won 125 seats (success rate 86 per cent).

Of the 267 Lok Sabha constituencies where the turnout increased by less than 10 per cent, the BJP and its allies managed to get 123 seats (success rate of 46 per cent), while in 61 Lok Sabha constituencies where voter turnout declined, the BJP and its allies managed to win only 21 seats (success rate of 34 per cent). But what happened in the Lok Sabha elections was not the case in the various Assembly elections held since.

The BJP has been successful in four of the six states that went to polls after general elections, but these victories had no connection with voter turnout. And that’s why mere voter turnout in Assam’s case is not an indicator of the voting trend.

All Assembly elections held during the past decade witnessed much higher turnout compared to previous Assembly elections in that state, but the government was not necessarily voted out of power.

In fact, the last three successive Assembly elections in Assam witnessed a high turnout — on an average 75 per cent voters — but the Congress managed to win all three.

Similarly, the turnout increased in successive Assembly elections held in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Maharashtra and few others, but a higher voter turnout did not result in a change of government in any of these states.

The Congress has been in a bad shape in Assam and its government has been finding it difficult to overcome the anti-incumbency factor. Its unpopularity and a strong opposition from the BJP could be the reasons for the Congress’ debacle and not necessarily the higher voter turnout.

There was a time when higher turnout used to mean a vote against the government, but that’s not the case anymore. Higher turnout in elections in recent years is a result of better electoral management by the Election Commission which facilitated voters, especially women and voters from marginalised communities, to turn out to vote in large numbers without fear. This explains the massive increase in the turnout of women voters in most of the recent Assembly elections and the last Lok Sabha elections.

The cleaning of electoral rolls by weeding out “ghost voters” has also contributed to the increased turnout in successive elections during the past decade.

It is hard to give definite meaning to the increased voter turnout in Assam, but data available suggests higher turnout may not overwhelmingly benefit the BJP. Of the 12 districts with high concentration of Muslim voters (more than 34 per cent), eight districts witnessed lower than the state’s average increase in turnout, while only four districts witnessed more than average increase in turnout.

Similarly, the two districts where Muslims are roughly about 25 per cent of total voters, the turnout increase has been less than the average. In another four of the five districts where Muslims are between 10-20 per cent of the total voters, the increase in turnout was much below the state average. Surprisingly, in five of the eight districts where Muslims are in small numbers, the increase in turnout was more than the average increase in turnout.

While there is hardly any doubt that the BJP and its allies will perform very well in the districts with very high Hindu population which also witnessed very high turnout, it is not certain how the BJP may have done in constituencies which have sizeable Muslim population and which also witnessed lower than the average turnout.

It is likely that Hindu voters may not have been as sharply polarised as parties may have expected in constituencies with sizeable number of Muslim population.

We would know all this for certain only on May 19 and who knows, if there are surprises, analyst like me may be forced to look for more nuanced analysis of voter turnout and its relation with electoral verdict. The writer is a professor and currently director of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. The views expressed are personal.