Hardik Patel (second from right), the face of the Patidar quota movement and former working president of the Gujarat Congress, was also considered a defector for this analysis, although he had never contested an election before. Photo Credit: PTI
ten percent of The candidates fielded by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2022 Gujarat elections are defectors. This is the highest share of BJP candidates in at least the last six elections, including 2022. Between 1998 and 2012, less than 5% of BJP candidates were defectors; In 2017, the share increased to 9%.
A defector is a candidate who contested from another party in the last election and is being fielded by the BJP this time. For this analysis, individuals like Hardik Patel, who did not contest elections earlier but was a prominent member of other parties and is the BJP’s candidate in 2022, is also counted as defectors.
Table 1 Shows the percentage of BJP candidates who are/were turncoats, newcomers, repeaters and incumbents in 2022, 2017 and 2012. For example, 10% of BJP candidates in 2022 are turncoats, 37% are newcomers, 63% are repeaters, and 41% are incumbents. New faces are those who have not contested elections before. Repeaters are people who have contested elections in the past, either as BJP candidates or otherwise. There are incumbent MLAs and may belong to the BJP or other parties. Therefore, the turncoat list is made up of repeaters (candidates from other party from previous elections), incumbents (sitting MLAs from other parties) and exceptions like Mr. Patel, who is a new face from another party. The sum of the four candidate types is greater than 100% because these categories are not mutually exclusive (for example, all incumbents are repeaters but not all repeaters are incumbents).
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As shown in Table 1, the BJP plans to counter the anti-incumbency wave by reducing the share of sitting MLAs. However, the same has not gone with the new faces – their share has also decreased. Instead, the party is relying on defectors and experienced candidates who are not sitting MLAs (they could have contested and lost in 2017 or were part of the elections before that).
This strategy is not new for the BJP. as shown in Table 2In 2018, 26% of BJP candidates in Karnataka were turncoats and in 2019, 74% of them in Maharashtra were repeaters. However, in Uttar Pradesh (2022) and Rajasthan (2018), the party relied more on new faces.
But past results show that fielding defectors has not worked for the BJP in Gujarat as compared to fielding new faces. To assess the success of these types of candidates, their strike rate was considered. Strike rate is the number of seats won as a share of seats contested. For example, in Table 3In the 2017 elections in Gujarat, 29% of BJP defectors won, compared to 52% of newcomers. In 2012 too, the strike rate of defector candidates was the lowest among all the four candidates.
However, in Karnataka (2018) and Maharashtra (2019) – two other instances where the BJP fielded 10% or more turncoats – the plan worked, with strike rates among turncoats ranging between 47% and 62%, respectively, as that is shown in the picture. Table 4, BJP is trying to emulate this strategy in Gujarat.
It seems that BJP has a method for candidate selection. Of all the seats allotted to defectors in 2022, the BJP lost 89% in 2017. In 53% of these seats, the party’s vote share decreased in 2017 as compared to 2012. Also, 21% of these seats were won by the BJP in 2012 but lost in 2017. So, it seems that the BJP has used defections to try its luck in the seats where it is weakest.
Similarly, new faces have been fielded on these weak seats as well. On the other hand, repeaters and incumbents have been fielded in seats where the party is relatively strong, as shown in the figure. Table 5,
Source: Election Commission of India, News report, Trivedi Center for Political Data
nihalani.j@thehindu.co.in | vignesh.r@thehindu.co.in
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