BJP tweaks strategy as it looks to retain Raj, MP

GAME PLAN Share of candidates repeated from same seats higher than 2008, 2013 polls

In recent years, one of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) defining electoral traits in states where it has returned to power is frugality in giving tickets to the same candidate from the same constituency. The most extreme example of this was the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections in 2017, where the party dropped all sitting councillors, and managed to win back all three — north, south and east — MCDs.

However, this time the party seems to have tweaked this strategy in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, where it has been running governments since 2003. The share of candidates repeated from the same constituencies in these two states is considerably higher than it was in the 2008 and 2013 elections. This is in contrast with the trend in Gujarat, where a lower share of candidates were repeated in the 2017 elections compared to 2012. In Rajasthan, however the share of candidates repeated by the BJP has dropped by three percentage points. However, the BJP was in opposition before 2013 in the state.

See chart 1 for the share of repeated candidates by the BJP in MP, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan.

The BJP’s numbers for repeat candidates in states where it has returned to power is perceptibly lower than those for other parties in their respective bastions. For example, in Odisha, the Biju Janata Dal repeated 41% of its candidates in 2009 and 63% in 2014. In recent years, the Congress has not returned to power in a major state. But in Assam, where it won a third term in 2011, it repeated 51% of candidates; even in 2016, when it lost the state after 15 years, the Congress repeated 45% of its candidates.

The strategy of not repeating candidates has helped the BJP in its strongholds such as Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat. This can be seen from the fact that the average position — winners would end up with position 1 — of new candidates has been lower than repeat candidates in the previous two elections. (Chart 2) However, in Rajasthan, BJP’s repeat candidates fared better than new faces in the 2013 elections.

These statistics suggest that the BJP has taken a risk in repeating a bigger share of candidates in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and lower share of candidates in Rajasthan. Will the change in strategy work or backfire?

We will know on 11 December. 2008 2008 2013 2008 2013 2013 2018 2008 2013 2018 2008 2013 2018

This township in Rajasthan’s mineral-rich Barmer district has had two celebrated sons: one a politician, the other a war hero. BJP veteran Jaswant Singh was India’s minister for defense and finance; his cousin, Lt General Hanut Singh the hero of the 1971 Indo-Pak battle of Basantar in Punjab.

Neither of them used the Jasol surname which Jaswant’s son Manvendra Singh, a member of the outgoing assembly, has started using. Elected from Barmer’s Sheo in 2013 on the BJP ticket, he has since joined the Congress and is the party’s candidate against chief minister Vasundhara Raje at Jhalrapatan in the Hadoti region.

Jasol is part of the assembly constituency called Pachpadara where Manvendra held the massively attended swabhimaan rally to seek his constituents’ view on his plans to quit the BJP.

In that sense, he has earned the suffix Jasol, as his commu-

JASOL: