Elections 2014: High voter turnout = Modi wave? Not really

This election season has been dominated by two major talking points. The first of course, is the Modi wave and whether or not it is ‘real’ as the BJP says, or simply a ‘media creation’ like the Congress insists. The second is the high turnout that has been registered across the constituencies that have gone to the polls so far. The numbers across almost all the states that have polled have been higher than in 2009: Unlike a ‘Modi wave’, which is an abstract concept, the voter turnout is actually quantifiable as can be seen in the chart above. And yet it remains one of the most hotly discussed subjects among political pundits. Why? Because we are not sure what the high turnout means. Is it, as is being posited by some political analysts, an indication that there is a Modi wave sweeping the country? Does it mean that the people, fed up with ten years of Congress rule are turning up in droves to vote them out? Or are we reading too much into something that is just what it is - a phenomenon that won’t radically contribute to the outcome of the election either way? Writing in the Times of India, the founding trustee of IndiaSpend, Praveen Chakravarty makes a strong argument that this may actually be the case. In his piece, Chakravarty studies five “wave” elections — 1977 (anti-Emergency), 1984 (Indira Gandhi assassination), 1989 (Bofors scandal), 1999 (Vajpayee wave) and 2004 (India Shining) and compares change in voter turnout vis-a-vis the previous election across the 12 largest states that account for 82 percent of all seats. Chakravarty’s analysis throws up some interesting facts. [caption id=“attachment_1506909” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The number of voters this election has been much higher: AFP[/caption] Firstly it shows that apart from 1984 which marked a massive sympathy wave following the assassination of Indira Gandhi and the anti-emergency wave of 1977, the other three ‘wave’ elections actually witnessed a lower turnout than the polls immediately prior to them. “It is not abundantly clear from data that higher voter turnout correlates with any national sentiment or wave”, he says. This argument has been made before. Last month Lokniti’s Sandip Shastri made the same point  during a debate on _CNN-IBN_  when the higher voter numbers first began making national headlines. “It is a wave when it is a sweep in a favour of a party or a combine. The BJP seems to be doing well in some pockets, but there are other places where it is doing only marginally well. The nature of competition is clear, two sides of the contest have taken clear positions. This has given greater interest in voters to cast their votes”,  he said. “There is no proof that an increase in voter turnout is a message for change. Sometimes higher voter turnout has been for the incumbent. We may be making a wrong assumption that it is going all to the BJP. It is simply a sign of a more sharp, clear contest”. However this has been an extraordinary election. There are only two more phases of polling to go before results are declared on 16 May. The BJP has all but called the election, backed by various pre-election pre-poll surveys which have given them varying margins of victory. They have also utilised the high turnout numbers to further strengthen this perception. The Congress on the other hand has put up a brave face, but as various reports have indicated, are quietly preparing for a stint in the opposition. But whether the margins will be as large as the BJP believes, or whether the higher voter turnout has any significant impact remains to be seen. As pointed out by Shastri, “In the context of the 2014 elections we have seen the attitude of voters has been against the UPA. But the beneficiaries also could also be for regional players”.