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Hello everyone, my name is Bipasha Nath, and I am a Program Associate at ADR. Welcome to our new podcast on Analysis of Vote Share, Margin of Victory and Representativeness of Winners in Bihar Assembly election, 2020.

 

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Overview and Relevance of Topic

 

The month of November witnessed the final election result for Bihar as Nitish Kumar-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) secured its position as the winning party for a fourth consecutive term with 125 seats in the 243-member State Assembly. At the individual party level, the BJP won 74 seats; JD(U), 43 seats; RJD, 75 seats; the INC, 19 seats; AIMIM, 5 seats; and LJP, 1 seat. In terms of demographic participation, female voters displayed greater involvement than their male counterparts, with 59.7% of the total voter-turnout being women, and 54.6% being men. The electoral rolls also saw a decline in third-gender votes that were eligible for consideration in the Bihar election this time. Overall, there were more than 15 lakh new voters who had the opportunity to decide the political environment of the state. 

 

We had earlier discussed in our fifth episode titled Bihar 2015 Elections - Analysis of Chances of Winning of Crorepati Candidates and Candidates with Criminal Cases, that the Bihar assembly election was to be the first in India where political parties had to furnish reasons for fielding candidates with criminal background. This election also saw the applicability of postal ballots for voters above the age of 80 years, in response to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

 

It is, thus, imperative to understand the impact of new electoral policies on the nature of elections and quality of political representation. ADR’s report on analysis of vote share, margin of victory and representativeness of winners in Bihar Assembly election, 2020 highlights some crucial aspects that allows scope for further consideration with particular regard to the Supreme Court’s latest directions on criminality in the political system. 

 

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Key Findings

 

The findings highlighted in the report indicate the following matters -

 

1. The winners of the Bihar State Assembly elections, 2020 won by an average of 43% of total votes polled, as compared to the 2015 elections, where winners won by an average of 44% of total votes polled

2. 38 (16%) winners won with 50% and above of the total votes polled in their constituency; and 205 (84%) winners won with less than 50% of the total votes polled in their constituency. 

3. 31 (19%) out of 165 winners with declared criminal cases have won with a vote share of 50% and above; and 32 (16%) out of 196 crorepati winners have won with a vote share of 50% and above. 

4. With regard to representativeness of winners, all winners won with an average of 25.23% of the total registered voters. This implies that the winners
represented, on an average, 25.23% of the total electorate

5. Among the major political parties, out of 75 winners of RJD, 41 (55%) won less than 25% of votes of the total registered voters in the constituency. 18 (24%) out of 74 winners from BJP, 26 (60%) out of 43 winners from JD(U), 12 (63%) out of 19 winners from INC, and 3 (25%) out of 12 winners from CPI(ML)(L) won less than 25% of votes of the total registered voters in the constituency
6. 3 winners won with margin of victory of less than 200 votes; and 2 winners have won with more than 30% of margin of victory 

7. Equally significant is that 58 out of 165 winners with declared criminal cases won against a runner up with a clean background. Among these 58 winners, 8 winners won with more than 20% margin of victory
8. Similarly, 42 out of 196 crorepati winners won against a non-crorepati runners up; and among these 42 winners, 5 winners won with more than 20% margin of victory
9. With regard to female winners, 26 out of 243 were women; and all of them won with 27% and above of vote share in their constituencies 

10. As for the 96 re-elected winners, none had won with less than 30% of vote share in their respective constituency; 12 (13%) won with more than 50% of vote share; 23 (24%) won with less than 5% of margin of victory; and 5 won with more than 25%
11. Lastly, out of 4,21,37,619 votes polled in the election, 7,06,252 (1.68%) were polled for NOTA

 

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Conclusion

 

As is commonly witnessed in the Indian political system, change takes time to take effect; a significant percentage of winners in the recent Bihar assembly election having criminal background and being crorepatis indicates the continued prevalence of money and muscle power in electoral processes. While the Supreme Court’s attempt to limit the role of criminality is a much-needed initiative, it must be supported by a strong follow-up mechanism that discourages non-compliance by political parties. Stringent actions must also be implemented to improve female participation - be it as voters or candidates/winners.

 

(05:50)

 

With this, we come to an end to our podcast. If you wish to learn more about ADR’s contributions in this matter, make sure you subscribe to the podcast on our website: adrindia.org or write to us at [email protected] with your feedback. We will be back in two weeks with another amazing episode. So stay tuned, and thank you for listening.

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