Chandigarh: The Congress party bagged 38.5 per cent of the total votes polled, resulting in 77 of its contestants finding a place in the Punjab Legislative Assembly as per the final vote share figures put up by the Punjab Chief Electoral Officer. Interestingly, the initial figures on CEO website on Saturday had pegged the Congress vote share at an astounding 50 pc.
While Shiromani Akali Dal secured 25.2% of the votes, the Aam Aadmi Party, which emerged as the main opposition party with 20 MLAs, lagged behind SAD with 23.7 per cent votes. The combined vote share of SAD-BJP alliance stood at 30.5 percent, with BJP on its own emerging as party of choice for 5.4 percent of the voters.
Compared to the 2012 Vidhan Sabha elections, when they secured five seats and majorly dented the Congress prospects, the independent candidates secured a blank this time around bagging a vote share of 2.1 percent.
The Bahujan Samaj Party with zero seats got 1.5 percent of the votes. The Lok Insaaf Party on the other hand secured 1.2 per cent of the popular votes with two wins, their performance graph remaining more or less at par with the previous elections.
What went in Congress party favor this time? On the face of it their has been no major swings in favor of any party in these elections as compared to the the parliamentary elections of 2014.
The Congress is the only party to gain vote share in these elections, weaning away voters from rest of the contestants. Combine this with the fact that the party’s core vote bank has remained largely consistent in the last three elections and we have a winning combination. On the other hand, the SAD has registered a consistent decline in its Panthic votes after the arrival of Aam Aadmi Party on the scene.
Party Vote Share – 2012
Party %Votes
SAD 34.59%
BJP 7.15%
INC 39.92%
Independent 7.13%
Secondly, it has been able to improve significantly on its conversion rate per percentage point of its vote share. In the 2012 Assembly elections, the party got 39 percent of the votes and won 46 seats, while the SAD scored a win in 56 seats with a much lesser vote share of 35 percent.
Third, the party has bagged seats across the state, scoring majorly in Malwa at the cost of the AAP and in Majha at the cost of the Akalis while retaining its traditional base in the Doaba region. Parties known to secure a spread of winning seats across the voting geography are the ones most likely to emerge as the winner.
Fourth, the Congress has been helped by the dissipation of the Panthic vote bank of the Akalis after the arrival of AAP on the scene. The SAD vote share reduced from 34.59 percent in 2012 to 26.30 percent in 2014 and now 25.20 percent in the present elections.
Most important, the Congress has posted a major dent in the votes drawn by BJP, the independents, and the Bahujan Samajwadi Party (vote share reduced from 4.29 percent in 2012 to 1.2 percent in 2017) in these elections. This is significant, especially in the case of BJP – a cadre based outfit that takes pride in its core voter base always voting along party lines. The BJP (aided by the Modi phenomenon) was the only party to increase its vote share in 2014 elections after AAP entered the scene. It bagged 7.15 percent votes in 2012 elections, which increased to 8.70 percent in 2014. However, in 2017, its vote share has fallen to 5.40 per cent, which in hindsight has proved catastrophic for the SAD – BJP combine. Whereas the party itself has been reduced to three seats, the fact that its traditional voters have chosen to go with the Congress this time has contributed to the loss of SAD candidates in majority of the 94 seats where it supported the latter.
Political observers say that the low key approach of the BJP cadre was too evident for all to see in the Mandate for Punjab in 2017