What Will The Outcome Of The 2022 Uttarakhand Assembly Election Be?

Who will win Uttarakhand in the 2022 assembly election? A simple answer is going to opinion polls as it’s a small state. Thus, opinion polls are mostly accurate. But is it so simple? Let’s first deliberate on opinion polls to date.

Confused? It starts with a hung assembly to BJP majority and again hung. Further, you can note that it travelled from hung with advantage to Congress, then BJP majority to again hung with BJP advantage. The latest is hung with a Congress advantage. I don’t blame pollsters because they always consider a unique factor for every state depending upon the type of polity.

But here, the same pollster sometimes predicts BJP majority, then again in the next poll says it’s a hung assembly. That means one thing is sure, Uttarakhand’s polity is very fluid and dynamic at this moment.

What could be the unique factor of Uttarakhand? One is definitely the history of Uttarakhand assembly election results. What does history say?

Uttarakhand was founded on 9 November, 2000, carving out of then Uttar Pradesh. At that time, it had 30 seats, whereas BJP had a sound majority of 23 seats. This was the interim assembly headed by the BJP government. The first assembly election was done in 2002, revising its total seats to 70.

Congress formed governments in 2002 and 2012. The BJP formed governments in the interim assemblies in 2000, then in 2007 and 2017.

That means since its inception, Uttarakhand has been won by the BJP and Congress alternatively. That means 2022 should go to Congress as per history. This factor put pollsters in a dilemma. But then the recent Kerala assembly election in 2021 broke the history of the alternate party’s government and LDF (Left Democratic Front) retained the power.

Is it time for Uttarakhand to create a history-making incumbent party to retain power for the first time? Isn’t this a confusing factor for pollsters?

I have looked over the data and compiled seats and vote share of BJP and Congress since the 2002 assembly election:

The above table gives an interesting trend on vote share as well as seats. First, it can be clearly seen that non-BJP and non-Congress parties’ vote share reduced over time has gone down from 47.64% to 20%.

BJP is most beneficial of this reduction as it increased its vote share from 26.91% to 46.5%. Interestingly in each election, its vote share is in increasing order irrespective of the fact whether the party won the election or not (26.91%, 31.9%, 33.13% and 46.5%).

Congress is just marginally benefitted from others’ vote share. Its vote share of 25.45% in 2002 has increased up to 33.79% in 2012 and this vote share came from the share of other parties and not the BJP.

Except in 2002, BJP’s seats never reduced below 31. The Congress got majority only in 2002 (36 seats). In 2012 it got just one seat above BJP (32) and in a hung assembly, it formed a coalition government (with BSP and others).

So, if historical data is considered, Congress may not be able to get more than 33–34% vote share and will not be able to get the majority.

Let’s deliberate on the above opinion poll data. Most opinion polls give Congress a maximum of 35–38% vote share (except Zee News with 40% vote share). Most opinion polls give BJP a vote share of 36–44% vote share.

My understanding is that for BJP to lose this assembly election, it has to lose a minimum of 15% of vote share and it will be the first time when BJP’s vote share will reduce since 2002. I don’t think BJP will lose 15% vote-share because of the following reasons:

• Narendra Modi’s popularity.
• Pushkar Singh Dhami has little or no anti-incumbency.
• Congress as a national party is losing footprints everywhere.
• AAP is yet to have a foothold in this polity.
• BSP’s losing footprint.
• Uttarakhand has the most influencing defence personnel who are pro-BJP on nationalism campaign.

Having said that, BJP may lose some vote share because of the following reasons:

• Farm agitation.
• Entry of AAP as an alternative.
• The popularity of Harish Rawat.
• Anti-incumbency against some MLA and ministers.

But as per my understanding, Congress may not win this Uttarakhand assembly election for all the reasons analysed. So either BJP will get the majority, or it will be a hung assembly with an advantage to BJP.

The only caveat I would place here is that in Indian politics, anything can happen and no analyst or pollster can predict anything.