Himachal Polls: Voter turnout and its impact on results

The question arises whether the 66% turnout reflects an anti-incumbency wave as predicted by the Congress, or a pro-incumbency wave as espoused by the BJP

The 2017 Assembly elections in the hill state of Himachal Pradesh recorded a historic 79.8 per cent voter turnout, and resulted in the end of the Congress regime and advent of the BJP government, with the saffron party claiming 44 seats.

And while the 2022 elections have seen a far lower turnout at 66 per cent, the question arises whether it reflects an anti-incumbency wave as predicted by the Congress, or a pro-incumbency wave as espoused by the BJP.

A higher turnout in typically means that voters are either highly enthusiastic about retaining the incumbent government, or very desperate to replace it with another. There examples of such, like in the case of the 2019 general elections, where 67 per cent of voters exercised their franchise to give the BJP a stronger mandate than 2014.

Since the state elections in 1982, Himachal Pradesh has been a state where the incumbent was unseated in nearly every subsequent poll, with the baton consistently passing from the BJP to the Congress - with the exception of 1982, when the Congress won more seats than the BJP but failed to earn a decisive majority, and in 1998, when both parties were tied at 31 seats each, and the BJP ultimately formed the government with an alliance with the Himachal Vikas Congress.

The near-cyclic change in government was accompanied by a high voter turnout, as the average voter turnout remained in the 70 per cent-range in the 9 Assembly elections between 1982 and 2017, with a low of 67.7 per cent in 1990, when the BJP won overwhelmingly with 46 seats, in and high of 79.8 per cent in 2017, when the BJP also won with 44 seats. This indicates that a higher turnout in the state has nearly always coincided with a change in the government, sometimes with an extreme majority for either the BJP or the Congress.