The Hindu : Kerala News : Sharp fall in Congress vote share

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 16, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

Sharp fall in Congress vote share

By Roy Mathew

Percentage of votes polled by political parties in the Lok Sabha elections in Kerala. Percentages have been rounded off. Source: Election Department. Graphics: Roy Mathew

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, MAY 15. The Congress votes in the State dipped by more than 12 lakh in the just concluded elections compared to the 1999 elections to the Lok Sabha.

Its vote share came down by 7.24 percentage points (from 39.35 per cent to 32.11 per cent for 17 seats contested in each of the election).

The LDF as a whole improved its vote share only by 2.48 percentage points, while the UDF suffered a decline of 8.57 percentage points.

The NDA gained by 5.5 percentage points. (It had contested only 16 seats in 1999). Apart from the main political fronts, the UDF suffered marginal erosion of votes towards some Independent candidates such as a farmers' representative in Kozhikode constituency and PDP candidate in the Ponnani constituency.

Swings would have occurred in all directions and the biggest net gainer is the BJP.

The vote share of Muslim League that contested two seats in both the elections dropped from 5.27 per cent to 4.87 per cent.

The Kerala Congress(M) vote share declined by nearly one percentage point.

The CPI(M), which contested 14 seats both in 1999 and 2004 (including Independents fielded by the party), improved its vote share by 2.11 percentage points, winning 2.28 lakh votes more. The CPI improved its vote share by 0.32 percentage point.

(While considering the drop or increase in votes of political parties, it is to be noted that the votes polled this time was 2.9 lakhs less than that of 1999.)

This analysis by The Hindu is based on official data that do not tally fully. Vote shares may vary slightly when the vote polled, counted and posted against each candidate are tallied. Election Department sources said that this might take at least two weeks.

The Election Watch, Kerala, a civil society initiative for free and fair elections, came out with slightly varying figures today.

According to it, the results clearly highlight the exaggerated nature of reward and punishment that the `first past the post' election system provides. The LDF, which has won less than half of the total votes cast, has walked away with 90 per cent of the seats while the UDF with 38 per cent of the votes and NDA with 12 per cent of votes have just got one seat each.

The highest percentage of vote polled and the highest margin (1.3 lakhs) both go to P. Sathi Devi of Vadakara while the lowest percentage of vote (34 per cent) and the lowest margin (529) go to P. C. Thomas of Muvattupuzha. Though the BJP contested in 19 seats, 25 per cent of its total votes came from O. Rajagopal in Thiruvananthapuram.

It is interesting to note than only four of the 20 winners have polled more than 50 per cent of the votes.

As far as winning margins are concerned, five of the candidates have won by more than a difference of one lakh votes, four of them from the CPI(M) and the fifth from the Muslim League (E. Ahmed).

Nine candidates have won with a margin of more than 50,000 votes while three have margins ranging from 40,000 to 50,000 votes.

Interestingly, there is no candidate having a margin between 10,000 and 40,000, a common occurrence in previous elections.

The three remaining winners have a margin of less than 10,000 votes with two of them winning less than 1,000 votes.

As many as 134 of the 177 candidates lost their deposits, including 17 BJP candidates. All independents and candidates of minor parties lost their deposits.

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