Phase 2 of 2019 Lok Sabha elections: A test of alliance politics

NEW DELHI: Voting in the phase 2 of the seven-phase Lok Sabha polls is under way in 95 constituencies spread across 11 states and one union territory.
In this phase, all eyes will be on the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, which sends 39 MPs to Lok Sabha. With 7% of the Lok Sabha seats, the results of the state will have a direct impact on who forms the government at Centre in case of a hung Lok Sabha.In Karnataka, the alliance of Congress and JD(S) will be hoping to defeat the BJP which won 17 of the 28 seats in 2014. In UP, the ability of Samajwadi Party to transfer its Yadav and other OBCs votes to BSP will put to test the arithmetic behind the alliance between the two parties.

Live updates: Voting under way for 95 Lok Sabha seats
Tamil Nadu
AIADMK swept the 2014 general elections in Tamil Nadu by winning 37 of the 39 seats. However, the death of two political stalwarts in the state, Jayalalithaa and M Karunanidhi, in a span of less than three years, has left a leadership vacuum.
Tamil Nadu offers the UPA best possible chance to maximise its seat count. Congress will be hoping that its president Rahul Gandhi’s approval rating translates into seats.
The AIADMK has been marred with internal factionalism. The Dhinakaran-led Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) is threatening to play a spoiler, especially in seats ceded to AIADMK allies. Dhinakaran has fielded candidates from all 39 constituencies.
On the other hand, DMK, under the leadership of MK Stalin will find it difficult to fill the shoes of M Karunanidhi.
Karnataka
Karnataka will vote on 14 of its 28 seats in Phase 2. Both the BJP and the Congress won an equal number of seats, six each, in 2014 elections. While the remaining two seats were won by the Janata Dal (Secular), which is now an ally of the Congress
An analysis of the vote shares of the BJP and the Congress reveals that barring one seat, Mysore, the victory margin for the BJP was over 10 per cent on the remaining five seats.
However, the same can't be said for the Congress. The highest victory margin for the Congress was in Bangalore Rural constituency, where it had won by a margin of 15.9%. On four other seats, the BJP and the Congress were almost neck-and-neck.
In Chikballapur, the victory margin for the Congress was a mere 0.75%.
The decision by the Congress and JD(S) to contest the elections together has given a new turn to the electoral mathematics in the state.
However, if vote share of 2014 Lok Sabha polls is considered, it reveals that the alliance will have little impact on the results.
In Bangalore Central, BJP received 51.85% votes in 2014. If votes received by the Congress and JD(S) were combined, the saffron party was still ahead by a margin of over 10% votes.
Out of the six seats won by BJP, there were three seats — Bangalore Central, Bangalore North, Bangalore Rural — where the combined votes of Congress and JD(S) failed to surpass the BJP's votes.
In Udupi Chikmaglaur, the JD(S)-Congress vote share stood at 40.07% of the votes, only marginally ahead of the BJP which got 39% of the votes.
Mysore is the only seat where the Congress, JD(S) alliance can hope to triumph BJP, if there is no change in voting pattern.

Uttar Pradesh
If 2014 was about the 'Modi wave', the 2019 general elections are about alliances forged by the regional parties—Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party -- to challenge the saffron wave.
In this phase, the BJP will be defending all of the eight seats.
In 2014, these eight seats handed comfortable wins to the BJP. The magnitude of the BJP's dominance on these eight seats can be gauged from the fact that the closest battle was fought in Nagina where the saffron party defeated its opponent by a margin of nearly 10% votes. In rest of the seven seats, the margin of victory was more than 15% of the votes. It won the Bulandshahr seat by a mammoth margin of 41.77% votes.
The BSP is fighting on seven of these eight seats as part of the seat-sharing agreement with SP. The ability of Samajwadi party to transfer its Yadav votes to BSP will be a major test for the alliance.
An analysis of the vote share of BJP and SP and BSP reveals that if the voters stick to the 2014 trend, i.e. there is no shift in votes across the vote banks, even then the alliance will face an uphill task to challenge the BJP. In five of the eight constituencies going to polls in this phase, BJP’s vote share was more than the combined votes received by SP and BSP in the previous general elections.
In the remaining three seats, the alliance seems to have a slight edge. However, barring Nagina, where the difference in SP-BSP and BJP votes is considerable - 16.2% in favour of the gathbandhan. Whereas, in the remaining two seats, the alliance barely manages to triumph the BJP.
Maharashtra
The 10 seats going to polls are from the arid Marathwada region where NDA won 8 seats in 2014. Maharashtra sends the second highest number of MPs to Lok Sabha, 48.
In 2014, the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance swept the state by winning 34 of the 41 seats. The victory margin for NDA is a testimony of its dominance in the state. The BJP won three of the four seats by a victory margin of over 20% votes. It won the Beed constituency by defeating its rival Congress by a margin of 43% votes.
The Congress managed to scrape through Hingoli seat by a margin of 0.17% votes and bagged the Nanded constituency by a margin of around 8% votes.
Bihar
The BJP failed to win any of the five seats in 2014, which will be going to polls in phase 2, but ended up as a runner-up in all the seats.
In two seats, Banka and Bhagalpur, it gave a stiff competition to the RJD, which won these seats by a margin of mere 1.13% and 0.98% votes.