Lack of strategic unity among opposition parties worked in favor of BJP
Lack of strategic unity among opposition parties worked in favor of BJP
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerged as the single largest party in the 2022 Goa Assembly elections, which revolved around the consolidation of the double anti-incumbency force. The lack of a strong and unified front to take advantage of the anti-incumbency wave as well as the presence of a large number of non-committed voters helped the BJP defeat the opposition.
Lokniti-CSDS survey data shows that anti-incumbency sentiment was stronger than in 2017. Four out of every 10 voters did not favor another chance for the BJP (5% more than in 2017). Three in 10 felt the BJP should be given another term, and nearly a quarter were non-committed or unsure whether the party should be given another chance.
Despite such a strong anti-incumbency wave, what worked in favor of the BJP was that the anti-incumbency vote got split between the Congress and other parties. Of those who did not give another chance to the BJP, four out of 10 voted for the Congress. Other votes were spread among the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) alliance, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Revolutionary Goa Party (RGP) and other smaller parties (Table 2).
The BJP converted one-third of the non-committed voters to its side, while the Congress could attract only one-fourth of these voters. Due to a fragmented opposition, the remaining 47% of non-committed voters went to other parties (14% to Trinamool Congress+, 10% to RGP; 6% to AAP; and 17% to independents and other parties). Worked for the BJP because if there was a United Front, most of these votes would have gone away from the BJP.
In both North and South Goa, the opposition parties failed to consolidate anti-incumbency sentiment well. Anti-incumbency sentiment was very strong in South Goa: six out of 10 voters did not favor giving the BJP another chance. In North Goa, this figure has come down to around four in 10. The integration of the anti-incumbency vote was poor in North Goa compared to South Goa – the Congress was able to get 42% of the anti-incumbency votes in the South, while it got only 34% of the votes in the North. Here, a major chunk of the anti-incumbency votes went to the TMC-Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party alliance (27%) and the RGP (19%).
Although the BJP successfully consolidated 71 per cent of the pro-incumbency votes in North Goa, which is also a stronghold of the party with high Hindu concentration in South Goa, it was able to garner 83% of such votes.
It should also be noted that the vote choices of the voters of Goa suggest a churn, rather than a stagnation of political loyalty. Both the Congress and the BJP lost nearly 40% of their previous voters to other parties. However, the BJP did a slightly better job than the Congress in capturing its previous supporters (Table 3). The data also shows that nearly a quarter of the previous Congress supporters did not give another chance to the BJP in the state, voting for the TMC-MGP alliance, AAP, RGP and other parties. However, only half of the previous BJP supporters, who did not want the BJP government to return, voted for the Congress, of whom two-fifths voted for other parties. Thus, the lack of strategic unity among the opposition parties worked in favor of the BJP despite a strong anti-incumbency sentiment.
Vibha Attri and Aastha are researchers at Lokniti-CSDS, Delhi