3 key factors to look at in today’s Lok Sabha results

All major exit polls have predicted a big win for the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the 2024 elections. Whether or not these predictions turn out to be true will be known today. Having said this here are three data points which will be worth watching out for in today’s results.

Will 2024 end up as the most bipolar election since 1984?

The best way to answer this question is to look at the median value for Effective Number of Participants (ENOP) for every general election in India.

ENOP is the reciprocal of sum of squares of vote share of every candidate in a constituency and a lower value indicates a less fragmented electoral contest. For example, if there are four candidates in a constituency and they get 26%, 25%, 25% and 24% votes ENOP value will be 3.99. If these votes share numbers change to 50%, 45%, 3% and 2% ENOP will fall to 2.2. Median ENOP was the highest in 2009 elections in India and it has fallen in the 2014 and 2019 elections. The 2019 median ENOP value of 2.38 was the same as 1989 value. Will 2024 see a continuation of the trend of falling median ENOPs?

To be sure, contradictory forces will be at play when it comes to overall median ENOP in the 2024 elections. For example, the BJP increasing its vote share in southern states such as Kerala and Tamil Nadu could increase the ENOP in these states. On the other hand, factors such as the alliance between TDP and the BJP in Andhra Pradesh and Congress and Aam Admi Party (AAP) in Delhi will work to bring it down.

A further fall in ENOP in 2024 will entail a growing squeeze on the viability of a third camp in Indian politics and further polarisation in just two camps irrespective of their respective strengths.

Will the BJP finally break ground in Tamil Nadu and Kerala?

Some exit polls have predicted that the BJP will win seats on both Tamil Nadu and Kerala. If these predictions turn out to be true, it will mean the beginning of a new phase in the BJP’s growing footprint. While the BJP has won parliamentary constituencies (PCs) in Tamil Nadu in the past, this was in alliance with one of the two main Dravidian parties. In Kerala, the BJP has never won anything more than an MLA election 2016 despite having a 10% plus state-wise vote share in the recent past.

The BJP’s ability to win seats in these two states is not just a question of optics for the party. It will have far reaching implications for the nature of political contest in these two states which have so far been bipolar affairs involving the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) in Tamil Nadu and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Congress led alliances in Kerala.

What will happen to parties which have tried to fight the BJP without challenging it ideologically?

Parties such as the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in Odisha, YSR Congress in Andhra Pradesh and the Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) come under this category. While they do not ally with the BJP in elections in their states, they have almost always extended support to the BJP’s legislative agenda in the parliament. Exit polls suggest that the BJP is expected to make large gains at the cost of these parties in the elections. If this happens, it will mean a squeeze on ideologically agnostic regional politics in the country. In many ways, this is to be expected when there is a national political hegemon.