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  In the previous Bihar assembly election of 2010, the BJP–JDU combine secured 39 per cent of the votes. Opponents RJD and Congress competed separately, but still garnered 35 per cent. Seems pretty close, right? However, the BJP + JDU alliance won a staggering 205 out of the 243 seats in 2010 despite a vote share that was just five points higher than their competitors’. This was because the opponents of the BJP + JDU had competed against each other and their votes did not add up. But this time, the JDU + RJD + Congress combo landed 42 per cent of the votes and won 178 seats. The BJP and its allies got 34 per cent, and won only 58 seats. Again, an eight-point vote share difference led to a landslide defeat for the BJP.

  So, does the official BJP line of ‘just bad arithmetic’ make sense? Not really. The BJP needs to remember only three numbers (in terms of percentage) if it wants to win elections: 25, 33 and 40.

  25 per cent is the BJP’s cult vote share or the bhakt vote share. No matter what happens, even in the worst of times, the BJP seems to garner this percentage of the votes. In Bihar 2015, despite the drubbing, it had a vote share of 24.4 per cent. In Lok Sabha 2009, when UPA II won big, BJP still had a 25 per cent vote share. This is no mean feat. A cult following in at least a quarter of the electorate is something to be valued and preserved. However, this 25 per cent also consists of all the Muslim-hating, Pakistan-hating, homosexual-hating, feminism-hating, anybody-who-is-not-like-us-hating voters. These are voters who love Hindu supremacy and want beef banned. This core support is what the BJP doesn’t want to lose at any cost, for it defines them and keeps them credible in the worst of times.

  However, here’s some news for the BJP people who seem to have got their arithmetic wrong—this 25 per cent is not enough.

  I won’t go into value judgements on how the values held by some of these voters are regressive, bigoted and wrong for India. Few listen to moral arguments in politics. It’s not about morals, it’s about the math. Luckily for India, and unfortunately for the BJP, this 25 per cent cult is not enough to win elections. Also, this vote bank is maintained at a cost. It is because of them that Muslims, comprising 15–20 per cent of the electorate, do not vote for the BJP. The media doesn’t like this 25 per cent either, which in turn makes them hostile to the BJP whenever the latter panders to them. With the media being so powerful today, preserving this 25 per cent means upsetting the remaining 75 per cent of the electorate.

  Hence, to win, provided the BJP’s opponents do not gang up against them, the vote share they need to secure is the second number—33 per cent, 8 points more than the core 25 per cent. This is what the BJP had in the Lok Sabha elections of 2014, when the Opposition was disorganised, and this share helped them win big. However, the party had to work hard for this extra 8 per cent. It involved taking on a development-oriented agenda, engaging with industry, building support among the youth, working on the OBC vote bank, and projecting Modi as a capable leader while making some rather lofty promises. This 8 per cent non-bhakt vote came from fence-sitters who voted for reform and believed for once that the BJP would deliver it. Though small in size, this set of voters was crucial. It was also not unconditional in its love. Unfortunately, the BJP did not continue to nurture them after the election.

  40 per cent is what the BJP needs to win when its opponents gang up, like they did in Bihar. That alliance is why, despite garnering 34 per cent of the vote, the party lost badly. Securing this 40 per cent is a scary scenario for the BJP. To pull this off, it not only needs to keep its cult base, but also fulfil the promises made to the non-bhakt 8 per cent and then win a further 7 per cent vote share from people sceptical of the BJP. One would have expected the BJP to demonstrate this with its exemplary performance after 2014. As the results show, it didn’t. If the Opposition gangs up again like it did in Bihar, it will be very tough going for the BJP in Lok Sabha 2019.

  This is all the maths the BJP needs to remember—25, 33, 40. It needs to take a risk with its cult, and do something to please the crucial 8 per cent for now. Big bang reforms, real action against specific people who spread communal intolerance, and sensitivity on OBC issues will help. Lower taxes will too, as much of the 8 per cent consists of taxpayers.

  Keep every percentage point of your vote share happy to stay in power, and build on that. Cults don’t win elections. Political parties which are inclusive and capable of pleasing different kinds of voters do. It is time the BJP understood this. Or it will fail the maths test again.

  In these San-sad Times, Call a Virtual Session of Parliament

  The ruling party, the Opposition and citizens must act together to ensure sessions of Parliament are not wasted

  I don’t know what is more disturbing: the fact that entire sessions of Parliament are routinely washed out in our country, or that we aren’t as bothered by this fact as we should be. What can we do about it anyway? We didn’t like the previous government, under which Parliament had ceased to work. So we elected a new majority government. Now even this government can’t seem to make Parliament work. What are we to do?

  Take Parliament’s monsoon session in 2015, for instance. Some blame the Congress: they disrupted proceedings, so it is their fault. Others point fingers at the BJP for shielding its ministers. Proving our opponents’ party wrong seems to preoccupy us more than the fact that an entire session of Parliament was wasted.

  We should be worried. If India just needed to maintain status quo in its policies and laws, the disruption would have mattered less. However, India is nowhere near the nothing-needs-to-change stage. We haven’t had a strong round of fundamental economic reforms since 1991. We don’t have a 10 per cent GDP growth rate, which we need to fulfil the aspirations of millions of young people. Doing business in India is still extraordinarily difficult; until that situation improves, a spurt in job growth won’t happen.

  What can we do? Well, the BJP, the Congress and all of us citizens need to change a few things if we don’t want to be stuck in this deadlocked democracy forever.

  First, it is in the best interests of the party in power, the BJP, to make Parliament work. This government still doesn’t have a corrupt image, despite the current controversies. However, what it doesn’t need is an image of ineffectiveness—of a government that can’t manage the country’s affairs or work with others in order to do so. What could it have done differently, for instance, in the case of Parliament’s monsoon session in 2015? First, even before the session started, the BJP could have addressed the issues related to Sushma Swaraj, Vasundhara Raje and Shivraj Singh Chouhan better. It chose to remain silent. Yes, these controversies were not comparable to the CWG or 2G scams. However, there were infractions and errors of judgement in Lalit Modi’s case.

  A simple way to test this is to ask: would the government do it again? If the answer is ‘no’, then a clarification at least would be in order, if not a resignation. In the Vyapam case, for example, there was a need to ensure a fair inquiry. If the BJP had accepted this fast, it could have come across as humble, receptive and responsive. More importantly, it could have played the controversy on its own terms and defused the Congress attack. By then it was too late, however, and the party acted after being pushed into a corner. Eventually, they had to relent and offer multiple explanations, including Swaraj’s, in Parliament. The BJP really needs to learn to play on the front foot, even when it has made mistakes. Moreover, it needs to go easy on the Gandhi family bashing. They have lost that game already, and the jokes are old.

  The Congress is also at fault. In politics, the opponent’s weaknesses are fair game. Of course, when the ruling party is embroiled in controversies, it is a tantalising opportunity to attack. But the party tends to punch far above its 44-member strength. There is only so much politics one should play. The Congress should do the right thing during sessions of Parliament and let the essential bills pass. Sure, attack your political opponent, but don’t harm the country.

  Finally, we citizens are also to blame. We are easily fooled into the ‘Congress did it’ or