The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Lok Sabha 2014 Performance

Looking at the math behind the AAP performance in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) contested 432 seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Given that they were only founded last year, had little or no monetary resources, depended solely on micr0-financing and crowdfunding and had limited electoral experience, this was a big step.

To put this in perspective, only Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) at 503 and Indian National Congress at 464 contested more seats than AAP. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), eventual winner of the election, only had 428 candidates in the fray, with other seats contested by regional allies.

If a party makes such an audacious nationwide electoral foray in the debut year, how do you measure the success? Clearly a new party will not win a significant number of seats, so while seats won is a key metric, it cannot be the only way to judge success. Let’s look at a broad section of data to determine what impact AAP had on this election.

Success Definition

Winnability Impact on Other Parties Control of Key Voter Segments

Winnability

Measure 1: Number of Seats Won

Figure 1: Seats Contested vs Seats Won

Measure 2: Distribution of Standing across Seats Contested

Fig 2: AAP candidate standing

If we drill down further, 12 out of 13 seats were AAP candidates stood either 1 or 2 were in Delhi and Punjab. These are the two regions where AAP had its best showing. Mr. Arvind Kejriwal, the key AAP leader was the only one to stand second in Varanasi, contesting against Mr. Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister designate. Otherwise, the party could not open up a single constituency anywhere in the country outside of the influence areas. The most frequent candidate rank for AAP was 5.

Measure 3: Extent of Losses

AAP candidates stood 3rd on 47 seats.

Only 4 of these 47 candidates polled more than 20% votes.

Only 8 of these 47 candidates polled more than 10% votes.

7 out of these 8 candidates contested from Delhi, Punjab and Chandigarh. The only seat where AAP managed to draw voters was Chandrapur in Maharashtra.

Only 6 of these 47 candidates saved their deposit -a candidate needs more than one sixth of the total votes polled to save the electoral deposit.

39 of the 47 candidates lost an inconsequential battle and were only coincidentally placed in Top 3.

Overall, 19 AAP candidates saved their electoral deposits -4.4% of the candidates who contested.

Impact on Other Parties

Measure 4: Results Impacted for Other Parties

One way to understand the impact AAP had on the election is to check how many seats they impacted- where the results would have been different had AAP not contested. The way to measure this is to find out if AAP candidates secured more votes than the margin of victory.

There are 23 seats where the margin of victory was less than the votes AAP candidate polled:

Fig 3: Seats where AAP candidate got more votes than the margin of win

A closer look at the above graphic -this is only a mathematical picture. A candidate standing 5th and impacting the result is as responsbile for the swing as the candidate standing 4th. In other words, if AAP candidate was not 3rd, the impact is not exclusive.

Let us take seats where AAP candidates ranked 3rd (10 seats) or 4th (2 seats) and impacted the result. Again, 8 of these 12 seats were in Punjab or Chandigarh. In reality, AAP impacted only 4 seats in India outside of their strength zone.

Of these 4 seats, 2 were in Kerala, 1 in Chhatisgarh and 1 in Mizoram. None of these 4 seats had any significant AAP campaign, so in that sense, the “achievement” belongs to the local candidate rather than the party apparatus.

The net impact on these non Delhi / Punjab / Chandigarh 4 seats was neutral to UPA. AAP helped UPA win 2 and caused them to lose 2. AAP caused 1 seat loss to BJP / NDA in Durg -that was their only NDA impact.

Measure 5: Contribution of Top Leaders

In a first major election, top party leaders would be the focus- they are expected to win and win big. Here is a summary of how the AAP big wigs fared in their respective constituencies:

Fig 4: Top AAP Leaders and how they fared in elections (1/2)

Fig 5: Top AAP Leaders and how they fared in elections (2/2)

Not a single top AAP leader created as much as a whimper outside Delhi, Punjab and Chandigarh. This included the AAP top leader Mr. Arvind Kejriwal, who lost in Varanasi. Though he managed to save his deposit, his performance was nowhere close to the rhetoric he generated in a high voltage month long election campaign.

Control of Key Voter Segments

Finally, the least AAP would have expected to was to make an urban impact. The party was founded and marketed on the growing urban angst. This is what they capitalized on in Delhi during the 2013 Assembly Elections.

A look at Top 25 cities in India (underlying 53 Lok Sabha constituencies) shows that AAP failed at attracting the relatively more educated and affluent urban voter. Only in 2 out of 25 cities -Delhi and Ludhaiana, AAP crossed 10% vote share.

Fig 6: AAP Votes in Metros

Basically, outside of North Indian states, AAP had little impact on the electorate. Even in the 3 large Central Indian cities (Nagpur, Indore, Bhopal), where AAP had credible local candidates, the gains were minimal.

Fig 7: AAP Votes in Metros by Region

Final data point on the total votes polled by AAP -AAP got to 2.1% of the national vote share. One argument is that this is a significant number for a new entrant to politics.

If we drill down, the vote break up for AAP is as follows:

Fig 8: AAP Vote Distribution

AAP got 53.3% of all its votes from just 21 constituencies in Delhi, Punjab and Chandigarh. So rest of the country, no less than 411 Lok Sabha constituencies, contributed 46.7% of AAP votes- on an average a little over 14,000 votes per constituency or about 1.2% of the average electorate sample. These figures do not reflect any significant penetration across the country.

Conclusion

Looking at the data on how AAP performed across India, it is clear that:

Limited party appeal: The party made inroads only in a small part of the country and had zero penetration outside of its strength areas of Delhi, Punjab and Chandigarh. Lackluster leadership: The party leaders who hogged television limelight December 2013 through April 2014, had no ground connect. Every single of them lost their seat barring one. And the loss margin was embarrassing, given the presumed star appeal. Not a single AAP leader had any credibility on any of the seats outside the strength areas, barring Mr. Arvind Kejriwal who had very limited impact. Depth compromised for breadth: Given that the party did a good job in some areas, presumably a more focused campaign in urban Punjab and neighboring states of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh may have yielded greater success. Instead the party chose to venture into areas where it had no presence and built no significant organization. “First time” rhetoric: The party has been making noises around a significant vote share in its first national attempt. The limitations to this claim have already been explained. Even if a 2.1% vote share in first attempt is deemed good enough, it needs some contrast with other similar efforts:

Swatantra Party, which first contested a Lok Sabha election in 1962, got 6.8% national vote share and 18 Lok Sabha seats. The party made deep inroads in then Congress strongholds of Bihar, Gujarat, Odisha and Rajasthan.

Janata Dal, which was formed in 1988, won 143 seats in the 1989 Lok Sabha elections. Admittedly, it had the benefit of alliances in some parts of India, but then that option is open to everyone. Janata Dal went on to form the central government in 1989 in the first attempt.

YSR Congress Party, which contested its first Lok Sabha election in 2014 just like AAP, won 2.2% of votes, marginally above AAP. YSRCP contested 42 seats as opposed to 432 of AAP.

Thus neither in the current context, nor in the historical context, this was a differently sparkling political debut.

So, the questions to ask…..

AAP leadership team has some of the most learned individuals. The expectations from such a group will be the use of discretion and do what is right for the long term.

How did they lose the Delhi assembly election momentum and destroyed the credibility and the goodwill the party had built?

the party had built? How did the party leaders allow its National Executive make these decisions and not convince them to sharpen focus ?

? Why did top leaders not campaign for their own star candidates in key constituencies?

So far, there have been no logical answers forthcoming. So then, it is fair to ask -did Mr. Arvind Kejriwal and his trusted team commit sins of omission or sins of commission?