COMMENTARY
The 2019 Lok Sabha Verdict
Sandeep Shastri, Ashutosh Kumar, Yatindra Singh Sisodia
T
he 2019 electoral mandate is his-
toric, in several ways. While taken
nationally, it is a vote for a second
term for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
government. It also indicates that alli-
ance arithmetic by itself does not guar-
antee a victory. In an important way,
understanding the 2019 verdict requires
one to focus on the different regions of
India and the distinct differences across
states within a region (Shastri et al 2019).
In keeping with past trends, any analysis
of a Lok Sabha election results requires
one to look at the trends in each state
(Kumar and Sisodia 2018; Kumar 2017;
Shastri 2009).
This verdict points out to a clear diff-
erence in the intensity of the BJP victory.
In North, West and Central India (save
Punjab), the election clearly saw an
entrenched BJP that swept the region.
Especially where it was in a direct con-
test with the Congress it did exceptionally
well. Eastern and north-eastern India
saw an expanding BJP, with the party
asserting its key role in the North East
and emerging as the key competitor to
the state ruling party in West Bengal
and Odisha. The South (save Karnataka)
continued to elude the BJP. The battle for
claiming the lead opposition space in
Telangana is on with both the BJP and
the Congress having halted the progress
of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi. Tamil
Nadu saw the domination of state-based
parties, as did Andhra Pradesh. Kerala
continued to witness a straight bipolar
fight with the BJP pushed to a distant
third position.
The Centre for the Study of Developing
Societies (CSDS)–Lokniti post-poll survey
had provided enough indication of voters
wishing to accord the ruling party and
its alliance a second term. This election
was clearly about the central government.
This explains the rout of the Congress in
Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhat-
tisgarh, where it was voted to power last
December. The vote last year was for a
change of guard at the state level. The vote
Economic & Political Weekly EPW AUGUST 10, 2019
this time is an unequivocal endorsement
of the claims of the BJP for another term
in office. Even in the South, the inability
of the BJP to make serious inroads in
key states can be explained in terms of
the visible unpopularity of the BJP-led
National Democratic Alliance (NDA)
government at the centre.
Much was made in this election of
extrapolating the electoral arithmetic of
alliance partners from previous polls. It
was argued by many that the alliances
formed against the BJP/NDA in Uttar
Pradesh, Karnataka and Jharkhand would
pose a stiff challenge to the BJP as the
combined votes of the alliance were
much higher in the previous Lok Sabha
poll. One needs to concede that this
simplistic electoral arithmetic does not
work for three reasons. First, the caste
calculus could undergo dramatic shifts
as in the case of Uttar Pradesh and
Karnataka. Second, much political water
would have flown below the political
bridge resulting in new sets of issues
influencing the minds of voters, as
happened in all the three states men-
tioned above. Finally, while leaders
may have come together to form an alli-
ance, the chemistry among the workers
and party supporters may not always
be positive, resulting in a shaky alliance
on the ground and limited vote transfer.
The analysis contained in the state-
specific papers outlines this fact in
greater detail.
This election was testimony to the NDA’s
success in stitching together an alliance
vol lIV no 32
that worked on the ground. The BJP
bent over backwards to accommodate its
allies in Bihar by agreeing to contest less
seats than what it won in 2014. In spite
of its serious differences with the Shiv
Sena it was able to form an alliance in
Maharashtra. For the BJP, winning 2019
was a clear goal and if alliances needed
to be formed to achieve this, nothing else
mattered. On the other hand, the United
Progressive Alliance’s (UPA) failure (save
in Tamil Nadu) to ensure that the anti-
incumbency vote does not split among
different parties appears to have cost
them dearly. The UPA and the state-
based parties opposed to the BJP seemed
unclear whether their primary focus
was to defeat the BJP or protect their
own political/electoral spaces.
Finally, the leadership factor. It is clear
that in the leadership sweep stakes,
the BJP/NDA did much better than the
UPA and the state-based parties. The
CSDS–Lokniti post-poll data indicates
that the NDA led over the UPA among
voters who wanted a decisive Prime
Minister. The Rahul Gandhi campaign
in 2019 was around the Rafale Deal and
the charge that Chowkidar chor hai.
Both seem to have had a limited impact
on the voter.
At the end of the day, the 2019 Lok
Sabha elections saw the BJP strategy of
retaining its strongholds and expanding
to newer domains contributing to its
electoral success. The UPA and the other
state-based parties appeared unable to
get their collective act together. It was
clearly a victory of a more effective and
well-planned electoral strategy by the
BJP and its NDA which produced rich
electoral dividends. A state by state
analysis of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections
clearly endorses this trend.
This article is an introduction to a series
of articles based on the post-poll survey
of the National Election Survey 2019
conducted by Lokniti–CSDS. These articles
are being published in EPW from the
issue dated 3 August 2019 onwards.
We would like to thank the guest editors
Sandeep Shastri, Ashutosh Kumar and
Yatindra Singh Sisodia for putting together
this series on the post-poll analysis of
the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
17
COMMENTARY
Table 1: Distribution of the Post-poll Sample interviews per PC, the number of PCs in The pre- and post-poll surveys were
State/UT Sample Size
each state was decided. Within each PC, designed by a team at Lokniti, CSDS and
Andhra Pradesh 929
two ACs were sampled by systematic ran- coordinated by scholars from the Lokniti
Assam 1,121
Bihar 1,201 dom sampling (SRS) procedure. If the nework in each of the states.
Chhattisgarh 548 state had only one PC, then eight ACs
Delhi 683 were sampled. States with only two PCs Sandeep Shastri (sshastri48@gmail.com) is
Goa 603 saw four ACs being sampled. Within each Pro Vice Chancellor, JAIN and National
Gujarat 776 Coordinator, Lokniti Network. Ashutosh Kumar
AC, three polling stations were selected
Haryana 757 (ashutoshchd@gmail.com) teaches political
by SRS procedure. The respondents in science at Punjab University, Chandigarh.
Himachal Pradesh 498
Jammu and Kashmir 615 each polling station were selected by Yatindra Singh Sisodia (yatindra15@yahoo.com)
Jharkhand 648 the SRS method, drawing the names is director, Madhya Pradesh Institute of Social
Karnataka 954 from the most updated electoral rolls. Sciences, Ujjain.
Kerala 1,667 All interviews (pre-poll and post-poll)
Madhya Pradesh 954 were face-to-face undertaken by trained References
Maharashtra 1,439
field investigators A standardised semi- Kumar, Ashutosh (2017): Rethinking State Politics
Manipur 409
structured interview schedule was used in India: Region within Regions, Delhi: Rout-
Meghalaya 453 ledge.
Nagaland 381 and each interview took between 40 Kumar, Ashutosh and Yatindra Singh Sisodia (2018):
Odisha 900 and 50 minutes. The interview sched- How India Votes: A State-by-State Look, New
Punjab 635 Delhi: Orient BlackSwan.
ules were translated and administered
Rajasthan 775 Shastri, Sandeep (2009): “Leadership at the State
in the local languages. Level Mattered,” Economic & Political Weekly,
Tamil Nadu 1,732 Vol 64, No 39, pp 88–91.
The achieved raw sample was weighed
Telangana 800 Shastri, Sandeep, Suhas Palshikar and Sanjay
Uttar Pradesh 2,705 by gender, locality, religion, and caste Kumar (2019): “Explaining the Modi Sweep
Uttarakhand 443 group based on the 2011 Census. across Regions,” Hindu, 26 May.
West Bengal 1610
Total 24,236

A Note on the Methodology

The analysis contained in these articles
is based on the Lokniti–CSDS National
Election Study 2019. It involved two
rounds: a pre-election survey and a post-
poll survey (Table 1).
The fieldwork for the pre-poll survey
was done between 24 and 31 March 2019.
Across 19 states 10,010 respondents were
interviewed. The survey was done in
101 assembly constituencies (ACs) spread
across 101 parliamentary constituencies
(PCs). The sampling design was multi-
stage random sampling. Within each
sampled AC, four polling stations were
selected. The respondents in each poll-
ing station were selected by the system-
atic random method, drawing the names
from the most updated electoral rolls.
The fieldwork for the post-poll survey
was conducted in 26 states after each
phase of voting. A total of 24,236 respond-
ents were interviewed across 211 parlia-
mentary constituencies. The sample size
for each state was determined on the
basis of the state’s share of the national
electorate. A selective adjustment was
done to ensure that the small states did
have a big enough sample to make state
level projections. Having a target of 100
18
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