The Hindu : Simultaneous polls help national parties

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Mar 20, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka

Simultaneous polls help national parties

By Our Special Correspondent

HUBLI, MARCH 19. Simultaneous polls have always worked to the advantage of the national political parties in terms of higher turnout and higher share of votes for the Lok Sabha elections compared with elections held exclusively for the House. This is seen in a study of the voting pattern in the 1998 Lok Sabha election and the simultaneous elections for the Lok Sabha and the Legislative Assembly held a year later in the 12 districts of North Karnataka.

The region accounts for 95 of the 224 Assembly seats and 12 of the 28 Lok Sabha seats from the State. Between the two polls, eight lakh additional voters turned up to exercise their franchise, and the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party, the two main national players in the elections, picked up additional votes. But the Janata Dal (United) and the Janata Dal (Secular) suffered setbacks.

The Congress, which secured 27.99 lakh votes to win four seats from the region in the Lok Sabha election in 1998, garnered 40.73 lakh votes to double its tally in the 1999 elections. The BJP, which had an alliance with late Ramakrishna Hegde's Lok Shakti, secured 34.40 lakh votes in the 1998 election. It won five seats and the Lok Shakti three seats.

In 1999, the BJP, on its own, secured 23.46 lakh votes and won three Lok Sabha seats from the region.

he Janata Dal (U), which contested five seats from the region, polled 15.36 lakh votes and won from Chikkodi.

The benefit to the national parties in the Lok Sabha election held simultaneously with that to the Assembly could be attributed to two major factors. First, the presence of a large number of candidates from the minor parties and independents for the Assembly election results in a higher turnout. Having come to vote in the Assembly elections, they exercise their franchise in the Lok Sabha poll.

Second, they may have a choice in the Assembly elections other than the candidates fielded by the major political parties.

There may be no such choice in the Lok Sabha poll. Those who do not wish to support the national parties in the Assembly election may not be averse to voting for them in the Lok Sabha election, where national issues matter more than local problems.

This is proved by the figures for the 1998 elections to the Lok Sabha and the simultaneous polls the next year. In 1998, 3.46 lakh votes were cast for candidates other than those fielded by the major political parties. The "others" category shows 3.1 lakh votes in the Lok Sabha poll in 1999 and 12.12 lakh votes in the simultaneous Assembly election.

It is quite clear that over three lakh voters do not support the Congress, the BJP, or the Janata Dal factions in the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls. Nine lakh voters who supported independents and minor groups ("others" category) in the Assenbly election, probably voted for a national party in the Lok Sabha poll.

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