Leading Online Desk : With the blessings of Bharatiya Janata Party, Shiv Sena split and once again BJP and Shiv Sena (Shinde) came to power in the state. Then BJP split with NCP and Ajit Pawar became Deputy Chief Minister. BJP has done the politics of dividing the opposition in various states of the country. Not only BJP but even when Congress was in power, there have been attempts to divide the opposition from time to time. But if you think that this is pure politics, then you are wrong. As much as there is politics in it, there is also a share of mathematics in it. We will see how in this article.
Party System in India | Lok Sabha Election 2024
India is not a country with a bilateral system like the US. The number of political parties in India is large and growing. Suppose India had a bilateral system, what would have happened? A party would have to get more than 50 percent of the votes to win the election. If there are three parties, more than 33 percent of the votes will be needed to win the election. Due to the multi-party system in India, the candidates who are elected often get less than 30 percent of the votes.
In a country like India, it is more convenient to divide the opposition than to work hard to get more votes to win an election. Therefore, by dividing the opposition, the ruling party also provides money to the newly formed party, this is called Seed Money. In a way, this policy is Divide And Rule.
The growing number of opposition parties in India, and the factionalism within the opposition, is one of the main reasons behind the victory of the ruling party. Between 1952 and 1967, the ruling party and its allies got up to 47 percent of the vote, while in 2014, the ruling party and its allies got a combined 38 percent of the vote. It means that the direct benefit of the multi-colored contest is seen to be happening to the ruling parties. Rather than failing in such a multi-faceted fight, the opposition has not been able to make a pre-election alliance. Prannoy Roy and Dorab Supariwala said that BJP is better than Congress in making this kind of alliance The Verdict It is said in this book.
Index of Opposition Unity
The unity index of the opposition parties can be measured Index Of Opposition Unity (IOU) It is said that In India the state of Kerala has the highest number of IOUs in the country for assembly elections and notably Kerala also has the highest number of small parties. Political parties in Kerala form alliances before elections and avoid vote division. But this does not seem to be happening in other states' assembly elections, as well as the Lok Sabha elections at the national level. According to The Verdict, 45 percent of the Lok Sabha seats won in India today are due to splits in the opposition. So political parties play cunning tricks to prevent unity among the opposition parties, while many times the opposition parties do not have the foresight to unite.
Increase in IOUs and Seats
Suppose if the IOU index increases by 1, the opposition seats may increase by 7. On the other hand, if a party increases its vote share even by 1 percentage point, it can add 15 seats, this is called Swing. When the swing increases by 1 percent, the opponent's vote also decreases by 1 percent, but in reality it is very difficult to create such a swing in the electorate. If this 1 percent swing is to be overcome, IOUs need to increase by 3 digits.
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