Part 1 Part 3

I caught your attention with the controversial title, didn’t I 🙂? Dropping the words majority or minority in any gathering is enough to get the conversation heated up. No, I am not using the word majority or minority the way you are thinking. Here the context is with respect to our election outcome. Going by popular vote share most of the time we end up with representatives and a government that doesn’t have the support of the majority, meaning we had a party or alliance that formed the government with <40% of vote share. We get governed by a minority government. Worse, all the winners put together had a vote share of <50%, which means there is no representation in Parliament or Assembly for good % of the population. Let’s look at some sample points, from past Parliament and Assembly elections, before we get in to what do we about it?

Let’s start from the top level, going by national level vote share for the party or alliance that formed the government. Please note that % share reflects the votes polled by that party against the total number of votes and not just from the seats it contested. Plus, you and I know that, vote share of a party includes the votes polled by both winners and losers from that party.

In 2014, BJP formed the government winning 282 seats, with a vote share of 31.34%. 31.34% vote share translated to 51.93% of Parliament seats; If we consider NDA, alliance BJP is part of, collectively they won 336 seats, 61.8%, from a combined vote share of 38.5%. 61.5% of the voters had to live with representation from 207, 38.12% in Parliament. What is more interesting is, with 4.14% vote share BSP got 0 representation. In 2009, UPA led by Congress formed the government with 262 seats, 48.2% of seats, with outside support, and polled 37.22% votes. Congress won 206 seats with 28.55% of vote share. NDA got 159, 29.28%, seats and their combined vote share was 24.63%.

In 2004, compared to 2014 and 2009, there is little bit better distribution, not balanced though, looking at seats and % vote share. Congress got 145 seats out of 26.53% vote share while BJP won 138 from 22.16%. Communist parties had a share of 53 seats from 7% votes share. UPA led by Congress formed the government with 218 seats, vote share of 35.4%, with outside support from few other parties taking the total to 335 seats. NDA won 181 seats with a vote share of 33.3%. In 1984 Parliament election, with sympathy wave Congress formed the government sweeping the poll, with 404 seats out of 514. With 49.10% of votes share, Congress won 78.6% of constituencies. Other national parties with 30.7% vote share got 47 (9.1%) seats, while the regional parties won 58 seats, 10.68%, with 11.56% vote share. In 2016 Tamilnadu Assembly election, with 40.77% of votes, ADMK won 57.69% of seats (135 out of 234). DMK with 31.64% vote share cornered 88 seats, 37.6%. Between these two parties, they took 95.3% of seats with 72.41% vote share. While ADMK contested in all 234 constituencies, DMK contested only in 180. With first past the goal post approach, this is a better outcome when it comes to representation.

What the above data points tells us is that a party or alliance can form the government without having the popular support, >50% vote share. With first past the goal post wins, we also end up with a situation where good % of population goes without representation, especially when the parties don’t even get to win a single parliament seat like BSP in 2014 Parliament election. Problem gets exacerbated when we dig deeper in to state level distribution and winners’ vote share. State level pattern for parliament elections show how the representation works or lack of it.

In 2014 Parliament election, in Uttar Pradesh, BSP got 0 Parliament seats with 19.6% vote share. 42.3% vote share translated to 71 Parliament seats, 30.7% to 9 seats, and 19.6% went with no representation. In Tamilnadu, AIADMK won 37 out of 39 seats with 44.3% vote share. 23.6% of the population that voted for DMK had no representation in Parliament. In Andhra Pradesh, with 30% of votes, TDP won 60% of seats. In Chattisgarh, with 48% vote share, BJP swept 90.9% of the seats. In 2009 Parliament election, in Andhra Pradesh, Congress swept 33 of 42 seats with 38.95% of votes. Rest got 9 seats with 61% of vote share. In Chattisgarh, with 45% vote share, BJP swept 90.9% of the seats. In Tamilnadu, DMK gets nearly 50% of seats with 25% vote share. In 2004 Parliament election, in Andhra Pradesh, Congress swept 29 of 42 seats, 69%, with 41.56% of votes. In Bihar, RJD won 55% of the seats with 30.67% of vote share. In Tamilnadu, with 29.77% of votes, ADMK goes with no seats, meaning nearly 30% of the population didn’t get any representation.

Even with first past the goal post wins method, at the least the hope is winners get the popular support, 50% or more. But what the data shows is that a candidate can win an election with as less as 30% vote share.

In 2014 Parliament election, only in 200 out of 543 candidates got the popular vote of 50% or more. Nearly 63% of the candidates won with anywhere between 26-50% vote share. To be precise, 111 won with 26-40% vote share. Put together all the winners got 47.11% vote share from the total votes polled. In 2009 Parliament election, only in 93 out of 543 constituencies candidates won with >50% popular vote. Out of the rest, 269 candidates won with 40-50% vote share, 143 between 30 to 40%, and 38 between 21 to 30%. In 2016 Tamilnadu Assembly election, only 25 out of 234 candidates won with >50% vote share.

With no criteria for minimum vote share for winning, we end up with candidates in parliament where >50% of the population didn’t vote for them. This works against the whole concept of representation in a democracy.

In a participative democracy, ideal situation would be all citizens are part of the government and take an active role in governance. Since this is not practical considering the size of the population, most to all democracies have some form of representative system. US, UK, or India elect representatives both at state assembly level and national parliament level. While in US people elect the State Governor and national President directly, in India we elect the representatives (legislatures) and they in turn choose the Chief Ministers and Prime Minister.

With parties and independents in the fray, we can go with proportional distribution of representatives based on % votes polled by parties/independents or we can go with choosing a winner in each constituency. First approach of proportional distribution, may look complicated but can be done working out a formula, is better than choosing a winner in each constituency when it comes to representation. As an example, ADMK would have got only 17 parliament seats out of 39 instead of 37 with 44.3% vote share in 2014 elections if we go with proportional distribution method. But we have chosen to go with second approach, first one to get past the goal post. Whoever gets the highest number of votes wins. With no minimum vote share criteria to be considered a winner, we have situations where even with 25% vote share a candidate wins in a multi-way contest.

Switching to proportional representation is the right option considering the Indian context, a pluralistic society with multiple parties. But it is not going to happen or if it does happen not anytime soon 😢 Don’t see any discussion happening on that topic. While we hear discussions on how to control election spending, how to remove bribe for votes, etc. representation or lack of it is not getting enough mind space. Most of the population and media is busy with answering the wrong questions like Rajni Vs Kamal, Modi Vs Rahul, Us Vs Them. We love the binaries and easy answers 🙂

Till then, to improve representation, my proposal would be to set a minimum vote share criterion of 50% to be considered a winner. Each candidate that get sent to assembly or parliament would have minimum 50% of the support of their constituency. Representation can be improved if the minimum bar is increased to 60%. This still doesn’t ensure fair representation but it will be better than what it is now. We can always have hope, right? 🙂

Sources:

1. Election Commission
2. 2014 Indian General Election
3. 2009 Indian General Election