CHEMISTRY WON DELHI FOR BJP, NOT ARITHMETIC

The controversies surrounding AAP's excise policy and Arvind Kejriwal's Sheeshmahal had given the party a body blow. The platform of honesty and integrity which had catapulted Kejriwal to limelight and power, had crumbled. The shoddy handling of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi added to voter grievances against AAP.

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A lot of unhappiness is being voiced by partners of the fast fraying I.N.D.I Alliance over both the Congress' and the AAP's decision to go it alone in the Delhi Assembly elections. I.N.D.I Alliance partners say that squabbling did not help either of the two parties, and that it was the Congress that ensured that the AAP lost in constituencies where the fight was close.

What is being missed by them is that it's not necessarily arithmetic that decides elections, it's chemistry. If it was arithmetic, then the Maharashtra Assembly elections would have been swept by the Maha Vikas Aghadi, because going by the Lok Sabha numbers, the alliance of Congress, Shiv Sena and NCP (Sharad Pawar), would have swept the elections. Instead, it was the Mahayuti of the BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP that won with a landslide.

One of the main reasons for this is that voters often do not vote the same way in the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections. Also, an alliance of rival parties, like in Delhi-AAP vs Congress-works if vote transfer happens. For instance, in Bengal, the Left and the Congress were at loggerheads for decades, when in 2016 they decided to fight the elections together. Numerically, in terms of vote percentage, they would have beaten the ruling incumbent, the Trinamool Congress easily, but that did not happen, because even though Left vote transferred to the Congress, it was not vice versa.