Vote share vs seats won: Which is the 3rd largest party in TN?

Which party emerged as the third-largest in the just-concluded elections to urban local bodies in Tamil Nadu is one question that is on the minds of almost everyone in the state. While the BJP says it has snatched the third position from Congress, the latter rebuts the claim.

Hours after the results were declared on February 22, Tamil Nadu BJP chief K Annamalai said the party has catapulted itself to the third position in the state, prompting a strong rebuttal from his Congress counterpart K S Alagiri who asserted that his party was the “third force” in the state after DMK and AIADMK.

This throws the pertinent question on what’s the real position? If one goes by the percentage of votes polled by parties that contested the elections, BJP, with 5.40 per cent, is the third-largest party. However, if one takes the number of seats won by parties, Congress, which emerged victorious in 586 wards, assumes the third position. BJP won 305 seats in municipal corporations, municipalities, and town panchayats.

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Many say the comparison between BJP and Congress is “misplaced” because of the “huge gap” in the number of seats contested by the two parties. While the BJP fielded its candidates in 5,594 seats (45 per cent), the Congress contested in just 1,370 seats (just a little over 10 per cent) as it was part of the DMK-led alliance.

BJP polled 9.26 lakh votes with the majority chunk of 5.87 lakh coming from the 21 municipal corporations, while Congress got 4.99 lakh votes across the state. In percentage, the BJP stands at 5.41, and the Congress (3.31).

Going strictly by the percentage of votes polled, the BJP has improved its performance – it got 2.4 per cent in 2011 civic elections -- after having come out of the AIADMK alliance. However, the increased vote share did not result in a huge increase in the number of seats.

The strike rate of BJP is around 9 per cent, it was 42 per cent was Congress – this is again an “undue comparison”, the analysts said, because the grand old party was in an alliance while the saffron outfit contested alone.

In fact, political analysts said, the BJP acted smart by contesting only in areas where it felt it had a chance to poll more votes so that it can build the narrative that it was emerging as an alternative to the Dravidian majors.

“An analysis should be done with equal parameters. In a democracy, the seats won by a party matter than the vote share. The representation of a party in the council/assembly is counted first than other parameters. The vote share of Congress has reduced because it contested in very less number of seats,” political analyst P Ramajayam told DH.

Prof. Ramu Manivannan, former Head of Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Madras, told DH that the BJP should “get inspired” by its performance in the elections and use this as a ground to explore.

“The results should inspire the BJP as it has secured over 5 per cent by contesting alone. But the party should overestimate and overread the results. The shifts are not going to happen so easily, but this is certainly a step forward for the BJP in Tamil Nadu. It is important for them to keep exploring and be modest about the performance,” he said.

Senior journalist R Bhagwan Singh agreed with Manivannan by saying the BJP is preparing the field by sowing the seeds for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. “The BJP adopted a very clever strategy of being choosy on the seats they will contest. They were not willing to field candidates in all seats and draw a blank. They identified their areas of influence and put up candidates there,” he said.

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