Vote share: Serious loss of ground for Congress

The Narendra Modi-led BJP has amassed a massive 51% vote share in Karnataka, which has come at the cost of the Congress that has lost electoral ground drastically, according to Election Commission data.

This is a cause for concern for the Congress whose vote share was on the rise. In the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, the grand old party polled 37.65% votes and this increased to 41.15% in the 2014 polls. This time, however, the Congress’ vote share decreased by almost ten percentage points to 31.9%.

The vote share of the JD(S) continues to decline. In 2009, the regional party polled 13.57%, which fell to 11% in 2014 and to 9.71% this time.

In 2014, on the back of Modi’s strength, the BJP won 17 out of 28 seats in Karnataka with a vote share of 43.37%.
Increasing its tally to 25 seats has seen its vote share jump by almost eight percentage points. This is being widely attributed to the “failure” of the Congress-JD(S) alliance in ensuring transfer of votes amongst themselves.

The BJP may have achieved, to a considerable extent, a united spectrum of Hindu votes (USHV). “This time, the backward classes which usually voted for the Congress went with the BJP saying they were Hindus first,” a Congress minister said.

Transfer of votes

The arithmetic of the alliance was simple: In 2014, the Congress and the JD(S) had a combined vote share of 52.22%, which was theoretically enough to defeat the BJP. But holding on to this vote share required coordination on the ground, the lack of which resulted in the alliance’s vote share falling to 41.57% this time.

The Mandya Lok Sabha segment is a classic example. In 2014, both parties polled 87.44% of the votes. But independent candidate Sumalatha won with a vote share of 51%, far ahead of Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy’s son Nikhil who got 41.89% of the votes.

Something similar happened in Tumkur, where the alliance partners had a combined vote share of 62%, which was more than enough to defeat the BJP. But JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda polled only 46.82%, indicating that votes did not transfer, leading to his defeat.

In Kolar, the Congress and the JD(S) together had polled 70% of the votes. Still, veteran Congress leader K H Muniyappa garnered just 39.66%, far behind the BJP.

The combined vote share arithmetic did not work as planned in Mysore, Shimoga, Chikballapur, Raichur and Bijapur among others.