Revision as of 14:09, 2 November 2016

Raths (chariots), 1982-2016

See graphics on this page and on the page Samajwadi Party

Political raths, NT Rama Rao, Devi Lal
The Times of India

Political raths, LK Advani
The Times of India

Political raths, Narendra Modi, Akhilesh Yadav
The Times of India

2011-2016 changing political landscape

The changing political landscape in Indian states, 2011-16; Graphic courtesy: The Times of India, May 20, 2016

Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal: how the various political parties fared in reserved seats, in seats with a significant Muslim vote and in the tea plantations, in the 2011 and 2016 elections to the state legislative assemblies; Graphic courtesy: The Times of India, May 20, 2016

`Others' got more seats than BJP + Cong in 30 polls (2012-16)

The Times of India, May 21 2016

That BJP has gradually replaced Congress as the dominant party in Indian politics and that recent assembly polls have accelerated that trend is obvious, but the reality is that between them, the two national parties have won less than half the seats and votes polled in the latest assembly polls in 28 states (excluding Telangana, which was part of Andhra Pradesh when the last elections were held there) and two union territories, Delhi and Puducherry . In these 30 elections dating from 2012 and including the fi ve just concluded, a total of 4,117 seats were up for grabs.BJP has secured a decisive lead over Congress by winning 1,051 of them against the latter's 871. That makes a combi ned total of 1,922 seats. But all other parties put together have won 2,195 seats, or more than half the total. Seat tallies can be a mis leading indicator of po litical dominance. This is not only because a party can get a lot of votes but hardly any seats in the first past the post system, but also because an MLA in, say, Sikkim, represents a much smaller population than one in Uttar Pradesh but both count as one in the tally.

A better indicator, therefore, is how many votes each party has won. Here again, BJP's combined tally of 12.6 crore votes from the 30 polls beats the Congress' 11.8 crore, even if the gap seems crore, even if the gap seems much smaller than in the seats. Again, though, the rest with 33.5 crore votes comfortably beat the combined tally of the two big national parties. BJP and Congress put together have won 42% of the votes polled, 58% going to the rest.

Some of this 58% has, of course, gone to allies of BJP or Congress, like Shiv Sena or Akalis in the case of BJP, or DMK and RJD in the case of Congress. Nevertheless, these are not votes won by the two national parties on their own.

More importantly , the bulk of the 33.5 crore votes polled by the rest has gone to parties like Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, Trinamool Congress, Biju Janata Dal, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and the Left in Kerala or Tripura which are not aligned with either of the two national parties.