Results for UP assembly polls will be counted on March 10
Most pollsters and analysts focus, and correctly, on measuring the popular vote percentage of parties in order to determine which party will win the highest number of seats. However, this exclusive emphasis on swing in votes perhaps misses a second key factor that influences the outcome of an election ,a factor which is especially important in the Indian election context: the level of fragmentation of the Opposition parties and its impact of the final outcome.
For years, the Index of Opposition Unity has been used to measure the level of fragmentation of the Opposition. In a nutshell, if the Opposition is fully united, the IOU is 100. The more fragmented and disunited the opposition is, the lower the IOU. An IOU score of 50 indicates a very disunited opposition. To place this in context, the IOU for India was 78, while the IOU for UP was 53 in the last state election.
The key question is how do both a swing in votes and changes in IOU win extra seats? Focusing on UP's 403 seats, a one percent swing in votes leads to 20 seats changing hands - while a similar change in the number of seats needs a 5 percent change in IOU (see Figure 1). It is perhaps marginally easier to raise the IOU by 5 percent than to cause a swing in votes of one percent.
What is the pure impact of IOU in UP? So if the BJP's vote remains constant at its 2017 level of 42%, how much does the Opposition vote need to coalesce around ONE party, for example, the Samajwadi Party, for it to become the winner party (see Figure 2)?
While it may seem simple for the IOU in UP to rise from an abysmally low 53 to reach even the all-India IOU average of 78, or close, for the Opposition in UP this may be a monumental task. Self-destruction is the essence of the Opposition in UP - with the motto "my current enemy is my biggest enemy's enemy"!
If the IOU doesn't rise, the BJP can afford to lose as much as 7.5% of its vote (i.e. a swing that causes a drop from its current 42% to 34.5%), which is not impossible in a volatile state like UP, but most experts consider this very unlikely.
In reality, the final outcome is always a combination of both a change in the IOU as well as a swing in votes.
Clearly, the BJP's solid vote foundation makes it the favourite to win, but what combination of a rise in IOU and a swing in votes would lead to a defeat of the BJP? (See Figure 3 & 3a)
Is it even possible that the BJP could drop far below the halfway mark of 200 seats? What possible combination of an increase in IOU and a Swing would lead to, say, 175 seats for the BJP (see Figure 4)
The aim of this piece is not to forecast the most likely outcome - It is to emphasise that it's not just swing but the neglected IOU factor that is crucial in Indian elections.