Lok Sabha polls: Experts decode what low voter turnout in Phase one means for parties

To the point, I’m Preeti Chaudhry, how many of you, of you who are following this election very closely have delved into the numbers in terms of voter percentage in the first phase? There’s a lot of chatter on it, especially on social media, even in print, because there’s been a huge difference from 2019. What the first phase on these seats and what it has pulled in the first phase in 2024. And that’s our top story on to the point this evening. We decode what the low voter turn out means in this years phase one Lok Sabha polls and what could it really mean in terms of political. Now the Election Commission has said, and rightly so, that there is a heat wave across the country and the heat could be deterring voters to actually come out and poll in large numbers. They’ve constantly, you know, asking voters to come out and exercise their franchise when it comes down to voting. But is there a political meaning to all of this? We would have heard multiple points of views and different narratives and commentary. So what we’re going to do in this show, viewers, we’re going to get some of the tops of ologists in the country and also political analysts to put their heads together. And what could it really mean? Now there’s been a dip of what now seems a four percentile, 4% in this phase of first phase polling on April 19th. Now you compare it to, like I said, 2019 Lok Sabha elections. It’s a 4% drop. While the Election Commission, like I said, has won, the heat wave is stopping voters from coming out and are pushing voters to vote in large numbers. Even the Prime Minister did so urging people to come out and vote in large numbers despite of how hot it is outside. Now a turn out of 65.5% was recorded in 102 seats of phase one has again 69.9% on these very seats in 2019. So that is a drop of 4%. Now I’m going to just break it down in terms of the states that went to polls. In Tamil Nadu, now Tamil Nadu, all 39 seats voted in the first phase. Now the voting percentage in 2024 polling was 69.7% as again 72.4% in 2019, so there’s about a drop of 3.4%. While in Uttarakhand the voters turn out was 57.2% which is the second lowest in the country in the first phase it was 61.9% in 2024. Let’s get you W Bengal. W Bengal is interesting because it has pulled the second highest voting percentage in the country on the three seats that went to polls went to polling in the first phase of election and it saw a voter turn out of 81.9% as against 71.4% in 2019. So that’s a very, very interesting number because its seen a jump of a 10 percent jump in voting percentage from 2019 on these three seats to 81% point 81.9% in 2024. Let’s turn around to Maharashtra 81.9% voters came out in phase one while in twenty 1964.1% for the voters in 2019. So a massive jump in Maharashtra numbers as well as close to 7.4% jump now in the BJP rule states. Uttar Pradesh phase one saw 61.1% voter turn out as against 66.6% in 2019. So that’s a drop in Uttar Pradesh on those eight seats that went to polls in the first phase of about 5%. And that’s quite a bit. Let’s get you now down to Madhya Pradesh 2024. So about 67.8% voter turn out as again 75.1% in 2019 will also get you Rajasthan which is the free card in all of this, which is about 57% this time around and it was in its early 60s and 2019. So the question that we’re going to ask is a high voter turnout advantage to the BJP or is it getting the BJP on the back foot? Who has the edge in this scenario? Is it traditional sophology? What does that suggest? Or the dynamics very, very different this time around? I’m sure a lot of you political guidas want to know exactly what the low voting percentage would mean. Introducing our guest this evening, Rajat Sethi, political commentator Ashutosh, political commentator, author Sanjay Kumar, Co director, Look Neeti, CSDS and sophologist Rahul Varma, Fellow Center for Policy Research. Sanjay Kumar asking you that question because there’s been so much chatter, so much talk on the 4% fall in voting percentage from 2019. Well, get into the fine print because some states have pulled 10% more than 2019 and some have fallen as low as 7 to 8%. What does it mean if you have to decode it for the viewers? Will you give it to heat or something more? I’m going to disappoint the viewers because really I don’t have an explanation and why there is no explanation? Because if we look at the electoral history in the recent past or even if you go back to couple of decades ago, there have been increase in turn out and we have seen governments voting voted out of power and governments retaining power. And it is vice versa also. Turn out has gone up and the governments have voted, has been voted out of power and government have retained the power. If you look at the most recent one 2014 Lok Sabha election, there was a huge increase in turn out and we know how badly Congress got defeated. 2019 Lok Sabha election much higher turn out compared to 2014 Lok Sabha elections but BJP registered a much bigger victory. If we go state by state, State assembly election last almost 1 1/2 decade, most of the assembly elections have witnessed a higher turn out compared to the previous election in that particular state. And in a very large number of cases the governments got defeated, some cases government also got reelected vice versa. So really, really it is very difficult to figure out at this moment whether a higher turn out indicates anti incumbency mood or a lower turn out really indicates a pro incumbency mood. Very difficult to figure out any correlation. But one thing is clear that this indicates A lesser or a lower interest of the voter in the current election, at least in the first phase, The constituency which went for in the first phase of polling, some, I think we should not. My own sense is that heat has also contributed to that. A very high, very high temperature on the polling day may have also contributed to slightly lower turn out. And just last one thing, we should not forget that we are comparing it with 2019 which registered the highest voter turn out. So that is why we are all talking about lower voter turn out, lower voter turn out. If you compare it with 2009, 2499 and various previous Lok Sabha election, we may be discussing something else that why the turn out is high compared to 2009. So the benchmark has gone up. 2019 registered a very high turn out of 68%. But you know, Sanjay Kumar, you’re really not helping the viewers because there’s so much interest and there’s so much, you know, chatter on what really is behind the 4% drop. But Rahul Verma is the news in the fine print because Sanjay Kumar has said that’s apology wise. You really can’t predict what it really means. Is it the fine print? Because if you look at the fine print, a state like W Bengal has seen a 10% jump in voter turn out. But a state like Bihar has seen a fall of about 7 to 8%. Uttarakhand again, then one of the lowest polling states. You’re on mute. Rahul Verma, I’m on mute. No, I’m not on mute. OK, We can hear you now. We can hear you. Go ahead. Yeah. Let me make four points. And I’m largely in agreement with Sanjay Kumar. First Point C, They like that. I’m not very much concerned about the turn out drop or decline. The reason is this that you cannot always have a turn out increasing. You had increase in 2014 and 2019. At some point there had to be a correction in this increase as we do in the market, right? If markets keep rising then at some point they will also drop. So it was expected that at some point this had to happen. This is happening in this election point #2 there is no correlation between turn out and incumbency advantage. Sanjay. He pointed out the data at at Lok Sabha level, but the same is if you analyze even at the constituency level, same trend for last 30 years of data. No sort of relationship where turn out matters is not the level of increase or decrease, but which groups turned out more or which groups turned out right. And what seems to be happening in last two election, those who are more inclined to vote for the BJP, they were turning out more and those who were inclined to vote for the opposition party voters, they were inclined to turn out less. So yes, it is possible that heat and because there is no national mood in the campaign, perhaps the campaign was muted. Those might be playing a role, but that’s a smaller sort of like role to my mind. Globally, what we know that the level of turn out is always related to political competition. As political competition increases, turn out is going to be high because each side is going to mobilize more voters. When political competition decreases, there is more sort of like chances that turn out is going to decline. And my final point, at this point, anyone trying to make a guess that which party is going to have an advantage with the decline or increase in turn out is at best guess without any evidence. All right, guess without any evidence. Before I bring in Ashutosh and Rajat Sethi in this conversation, Sanjay Ji and Rahul Ji will ask you one quick question. Sanjay Ji, do you think somewhere down the line where you said that at least one thing we can gauge that enthusiasm is low this time, does that mean its not a wave election because in a wave election you’d see high enthusiasm? Yes, to a great extent I would agree to the statement that if you compare it with 2019, the enthusiasm in 2024 election seems to be low and that is also because we don’t see a wave in this election. There is this. I would not consider it as a wave election, at least going by the first phase of polling. OK. Rahul Verma, do you concur with Sanjayji? See most of the time waves we only figure out once the elections are over and we look at the results and we see whether there was a wave or not. So even with this sort of election, whether it BJP say will speak touches 350 or BJP loses and comes down to 250 or below, we would be able to sort of like indicate that there was either a pro BJP wave or anti BJP wave. So its hard during the election process to figure out whether there is a wave or not. Playing it very safe. Rahul Verma, your article said something very different. I’m going to come back to it. But I want to cut across and bring in Ashutosh and Rajat Sethi. I think you know, Ashutosh, what Rajat, Rahul Verma has done is he’s gone back, looked at things and said maybe a little too early to say. There’s no way. But Sanjay Ji has said it. But Ashutosh and Rajat Sethi, I’m going to bring you in on, you know, on this and maybe politically speaking, Ashutosh, what do you make of it? If you look at the fine print, three seats in West Bengal go to polling. All three of them held by the Bharatiya Janta Party, see a voting percentage of 10%, higher than 2019. On these three seats. On the other hand, you know, one might say that there’s anti incumbency vote there, but in Bihar, its similar. Those seats were held by the BJP and its seen the lowest voting percentage, the second lowest in the first phase. See pretty on a lighter note, the sophologists, they go by data and data by nature is boring and non exciting. So I am not surprised the reaction of Mr. Rahul Verma and Sanjay Kumar. But political analysts I can tell you are more exciting. See the two things is very clear. One, there is no enthusiasm in the world and there is a there is a certain amount of indifference also. And this certain amount of indifference is is for many, many reasons. But what I am going to infer is what the Prime Minister said just after the first day of first day of polling. And if you correct both of them, the way the Prime Minister has attacked and crossed all lines, the Lakshmi Rekha has crossed, that shows that there is something wrong with the first phase of polling and the BJP is slightly worried. And the BJP can be worried only on one count that the kind of expectation they were having with the voters is not being fulfilled. The point #2 that either the BJP voters are not coming to the polls or BJP booth workers are also not not working work working in the sense. And why I am saying so? Because sometimes it happens. Then when the when the leader is saying we are winning, we are winning with a huge margin, then what happens? The leader, the the candidate and the worker and the Carter, all four, they get very complacent. They know that we are anyway going to win and the margin is so heavy in North India that even if the 2% drops, yes we are going to win. And that’s why the Prime Ministers belligerent speech on the Hindu Muslim issues and is continuously attacking on that issue. It shows that the BJP if not BJP at least the Prime Minister is worried and he knows the low turn out is a bad signal. Alright, Rajat Sethi. And is that the reason why that at least in the last two days, what we’ve heard the Prime Minister and your top leadership opening rallies with not Isbar Char so far, but Isbar Modi Sarkar, there’s been maybe a rethink on that. Is it that, you know, maybe you bit off too much by suggesting 400 you’ve made your Carter and your voters complacent? Well, you know one thing PTG is sure that US analysts think and are wired in a different way and politicians are wired and that to Prime Minister Modi is wired in a totally different way. First of all, what I feel, what I sort of understand from first phase is that yes, BJP would have thought. I mean, see ideally when you are in a war, you do not plan for the best case scenario. You plan for an absolute worst case scenario. Best case can always happen, which is good for everybody, for the incumbent, etc. But when you’re planning for the worst case, you would want to identify what genuine issues would have gone wrong in terms of having a lower voter turn out. And this is where I think Prime Minister Modi was never satisfied, you know, with a benchmark. He keeps pushing the envelope forward. He would have thought that is it that the middle class voters haven’t gone out because of the heat wave or is it that, you know, Mike Carter is not enthused enough that he is not able to draw, draw out the people for the voting? He would be, you know, looking at those those factors, even if it might not be true, he would still be, you know, prepping himself, prepping for the election and constantly changing his game plan, his strategy as we speak throughout the election in a live way. Contrary to this, I don’t think opposition is so nimble or is so agile when it comes to changing scenarios. This is where the key difference is. What Prime Minister would have thought is, yes, the temperatures seem a little low. We have seen 2 consecutive very high octane events. The local elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, you know BJP went all out and like it was a very, very big electoral affair because that was considered as a semi final. And then you had the Ram temple issue, again a very high octane event. When these two high octane events were there, the first phase relatively seemed a little dull. And I think this is where Prime Minister would have picked up that it requires greater political rhetoric. It requires going ballistic against the opposition. And, and you know, people at the end of the day want to see a gladiator fight. And if they see the gladiator fight, they cheer more. And the more they cheer, the more they turn up at, at the electoral, at the election booths. And it is good for everybody. If, if a voter is getting a chance to come out and, and pick their representative, it is good for the opposition, good for the incumbent. But here the incumbent is smart in a way that they are planning out the worst case scenario and trying to course correct and trying to see that, you know, the voter is at least enthused among the choice that is available. However, start that choice, Sanjay Ji, you know, you, you at least struck your head out and said that it at least for now, even if you go by the first phase, it doesn’t seem like a wave election. And of course we know because there are 6 phases pending and you can, you know, correct yourself later on if you think otherwise. But as a synologist, if you are to look at the first phase, what are the top readings that you have come up with top reading? My own sense is that what Rahul has mentioned that if you if the voters also look at the nature of competition, you mentioned about very low turn out in Bihar. I think general perception is that BJP is having a very strong alliance in its favor. And so voters of the NDA as well as the UPANDA voters may have got complacent because they think our group or the party which they are likely to vote for is very strong or the NDA which they are likely to vote for is very strong. So why to stand in the queue in such a hot weather and maybe the the voters who intended to vote for the India alliance, they may have thought maybe that it is very difficult to defeat the formidable NDA alliance in Bihar as it looks like going by the alliance pattern. So that that may have to the nature of political competition may have brought down the turn out in Bihar. And if you look at Bengal which you are mentioning that a 10% increase and we all know that how keenly people are watching the West Bengal election and how keenly is West Bengal election contested. So some relationship you can draw that the nature of competition may also be guiding the voters enthusiasm and their participation in on the voting day. So that’s also some relationship we find. That’s the kind of analysis I could do based on the turn out in different states. Rahul Verma, you know, let’s bring in a few other states in all of this. Uttarakhand, one of the lower states in terms of turn out, and you bring in a state like Rajasthan. Many political analysts today say Rajasthan could be the wild card, at least in the first two phases, and it could go either way. But, you know, even there, there’s been a significant drop in voting percentage to, as I said, Preeti, you know, like one thing which I learned with every election that once the voting starts or comes very, very close to a voting day, Alexis, somehow in all kinds of conversations become very, very uncertain. Like if you were talking a month from like, you know, 15 days, 20 days back, all polls were predicting that BJP has a massive advantage would be sort of like crossing its previous mark. So elections at that point seem a little bit more certain. And this largely happens because during the election phase, we don’t have the kind of data, polling data and everything that comes out which was available 1520 days back. So to me like it’s all the conversation which makes election much more uncertain rather than the actual ground situation. Because elections hardly like at this level can be changed in last 10 days, 15 days, much like exam. If you only study on the last day, you can very well pass the exam, but you are not going to get, you know, distinction. So the more. Uncertainty which is being created on Twitter and all kinds of conversation which we are having is actually not the situation. So you will see all that analysis coming up regarding your point. See why in some states the fluctuation would be around the turn out would be higher is also given the pace. See, a Tamil Nadu or or or or or West Bengal on an average turns out around 80%, whereas a UP and Bihar turns out around the 60%. So the kind of fluctuations that you can see in these two states because of the base is going to be very, very different. All right, You know, Ashutosh, taking off from what Rahul Verma said that till now, there’s at least been perception that the BJP was in pole position going into this election when an election starts. And he is right. The heat of the election, you know, campaign, all the rhetoric, sometimes you end up missing the woods from the trees and the chatter on Twitter and social media takes over on what really is happening on ground. Do you see, you know, people fall victim to that? No, I will not say that the people will fall victim victim for that. But the fact of the matter that the BJP is it a pole position since 2014 BJP is in a pole position and there is a there is a there is a huge amount of upsurge in their vote percentage. If you look at 2009, in 2009, the BJP was somewhere around 7,00,00,000 of the 8,00,00,000 it. In 2014, it jumped to 1717 crore votes and in 2019 it jumped to 22,00,00,000 votes. So from 19% to 37% from 19% to 31% percent votes here and the and the Congress on in contrast has diminished. It has gone back to 19% from 28% in 2009. So there is no doubt in the BJP is in a pole position. The if you look at the about about the battles which is which is which is in the North India and the battles of the North India, the BJP almost from they have a gap of the gap between the Congress and the BJP is from 10 to 25% vote share from 10 to 25% vote share. So, so that shows that the and and still if you see that the political, political movement which is happening in Rajasthan and a political movement happening in the western UP, that means there is something is happening on the ground. And that something on the ground can be upsetting the BJP because BJP is already BJP has has saturated in the North India. But as I bring in Rajat Sethi, Ashutosh, therefore the question. So is it oversimplification of what the Prime Minister possibly said two days ago and say that maybe the BJP is finding itself in a weak spot. That’s why the kind of rhetoric because we’ve seen it happen before. BJP is a party which doesn’t take anything rightly. Ashutosh. OK Rajat Sethi come in. Yeah. No, I mean you answered your question Preeti BJP, I don’t think that they are taking this election for granted. 400 pivot and all of that is OK. But I think they also understand that like cricket, nothing is certain in politics for weeks time is a long time in politics, things can rapidly change. And I think this is 1 factor. The Prime Minister is, is is very strongly keeping it, keeping a close watch. And also in certain seats, what I’m observing, I’m in Maharashtra and I’m observing certain seats are becoming unnecessarily hyper localized. They’re going on specific, you know, between 2 royal families fighting, its between Pawar and Pawar fighting. Its not about Modi anymore. And I think this is where Prime Minister Modi is trying to increase the temperature and make it about him. But you know, Rajat Seji, your bang on there and I have you know, I’m running out of time. But your bang on there because what is happening on certain seats and that’s not just happening in Maharashtra where you are, you know, not all but a couple of seats in Rajasthan exactly the same where its the contest is becoming hyper localized. I just want to bring in Rahul Varma and Sanjay Kumar quickly back into this conversation. Rahul Varma, final words going ahead to phase two and one words, what would you be watching out for Preeti? You know, I don’t look at things in binaries. Certain versus uncertain, yeah, you know, yes, nothing is certain in life. But when you think of certainty and uncertainty, you have to think in terms of probability. Yes, cricket matches become uncertain in the like when the game starts, but you have certain probability associated when two teams contest, who’s going to more likely to win. Similarly, what happens in elections because all of these conversations which is coming out of each sort of like seat and even from each polling booth, you are looking at least too much and then not figuring out what’s happening at the bigger level. The bigger picture drives elections, not what is happening in each village and each mohallah because then it becomes really, really hard to figure out what’s going on to zoom out from micro to macro, but zoom out from micro to macro with lexicology have also got a bit of philosophy in all of this. But Sanjay Ji, last question to you, would you want to take the same what I asked Rahul Varma, what would you be watching out for? No no, I would be watching 2 states Kerala because Kerala, BJP, Congress has performed very well in the last Lok Sabha election and there is so much of hype created by BJP in Kerala. So what’s happening in Kerala tomorrow on the 26th of April And also Karnataka where BJP got defeated, there is a Congress government and Congress seems to be holding very strong because its a very strong regional leaders in Karnataka. BJP had performed very well in 2019 Lok Sabha elections, 125 out of 28 seats. So I think I would also be watching Karnataka and BJP repeats its performance. So I think these are the two states which is on my plate when the people vote, vote on in these two states on the 26th of April. All right. And we reconvene soon after that. Appreciate all for gentlemen for joining us. Thank you there. We’re going to leave it at that, you know, best leave it to safology and what we can say for sure. Well, its hot, so even if the election Commission says that one of the main reasons for the voting percentage to drop is the heat wave, you can possibly believe that also its very, very hot out there. Leaving it at that.