The Election Commission of India declared the dates of the Himachal Pradesh state assembly election on 14th October 2022. According to that press conference, the voting day is November 12th, 2022, and the counting day is on 8th December 2022. It’s really interesting to note that there’s a 26 days difference between the voting and counting date. That means the counting date is made so long to accommodate the Gujarat assembly election too, although it wasn’t declared on the same day. Why? No doubt, India’s Election Commission is known for its credibility Worldwide. But such things sometimes become questionable. If the opposition blames citing the time given to Prime Minister Modi to inaugurate some projects or declare some packages for Gujarat before the dates are declared, they will not be wrong. Sometimes institutions like ECI should make themselves unquestionably credible.
Anyway, let’s come to a pre-election analysis for the upcoming Himachal Pradesh Assembly. Let’s first go through the electoral history of this state. I have compiled it in the form of a table below since the 1990 election. The electoral history says that both BJP and Congress won elections alternatively. So Should Congress win this time?
Source- Wikipedia
But then let’s go deep into the compiled table. Congress had its maximum vote share way back in 1993 at 48.89% whereas BJP had its maximum vote share at 48.8% in 2017. Interestingly in the 1998 election, both BJP and Congress had the same number of seats although Congress had (43.50-39.01) =4.49% more vote share. This is significant according to me. In that election, Himachal Vikas Congress which is formed by leaders spitting from Congress won 5 seats and finally, BJP formed a coalition government with HPC. That means if there’s a third party of any significance, then BJP’s numbers can be more with comparatively less vote share. This time AAP is also campaigning vigorously in Himachal Pradesh. Whether it will help BJP to retain its power?
During the 1998 assembly election, Congress was the incumbent party, thus it had anti-incumbency. But a third-party HVP made a 9.52% vote share. If we add both Congress and HVP vote share it becomes 53.02% vote share. That means Congress could have overcome the anti-incumbency easily then. That means there was also pro-incumbency!
Before going to opinion polls, let’s have a clear idea of the present political situation of Himachal Pradesh. The present BJP government under the leadership of Jai Ram Thakur is not so popular or say facing anti-incumbency. Congress in the absence of Virbhadra Singh doesn’t have a strong face. The organization also weakened a lot because of the weakening of central Congress leadership. AAP getting confidence from the Punjab Election win, jumped into the Himachal Pradesh assembly election and campaigned vigorously.
There’s a general formula in every election that if anti-incumbency votes are distributed by two or more parties, then the incumbent party always benefited. As Congress and AAP’s vote banks are similar in nature (anti-BJP), thus AAP’s success may dent Congress’s success. Congress is ceding its space to many regional parties in different states and AAP is also one beneficiary. That’s why I think, despite anti-incumbency, BJP may retain the government if AAP really succeeds in acquiring Congress’s votes.
Now let’s delve into opinion poll data. I have two opinion polls that are remarkably contrasting although both say that BJP will retain the government. First, let’s take the ABP-C-Voter opinion poll. It didn’t provide any vote share data of competing parties. It just asked a few questions like who is likely to win, which are the more pressing issues etc. It concluded that BJP might retain power although corruption is an issue. For a person like me, such a survey is useless. most likely the C-voter opinion poll will come with data in a couple of days.
There’s another opinion poll India TV-Matrize. According to this poll, BJP will get 46% vote share followed by Congress with 42% vote share and AAP will end up with just a 2% vote share. That means BJP’s vote share is reducing by 2.8% whereas Congress’s vote share in increasing marginally by 0.5% compared to the 2017 assembly election. I don’t trust the number of seats as the dynamic of different polity is different. Thus I always trust vote shares. The number always depends on the difference in vote share from the number one party to the number 2 party except in southern states like TN, Karnataka, or Kerala.
If the vote share of India TV-Matrize is to be trusted and if AAP is not doing well, then I think BJP is in deep trouble. The anti-incumbency votes of the BJP are not distributed thus I won’t be surprised if Congress wins this election exactly as per its electoral history. However, if AAP manages at least 10% vote share or more then only BJP will retain the government.
Just a caveat- Like the Uttarakhand assembly election result where AAP got merely 3.3% vote share whereas BJP retained the power despite the incumbent Chief Minister losing its election, the same could be repeated here as both states are alike in many ways including political culture. But if Congress can’t win then it should blame itself.