Tuesday, August 6, 2019

Smart Move for integrating the State of J & K by Modi Government - neutralising Article 370 without abrogating it


Amit Shah's (or his team's) finesse in making the moves he announced on 5th August, 2019 in the Rajya Sabha at 11:00 consisted of the following:
1) Achieved effects of abrogating Article 370 without actually abrogating it; this has been done through the instrument of a Presidential notification (foot-note #1) by just substituting few words - "Legislative Assembly of the State" for "Constituent Assembly of the State", and "references to the Government of the said State shall be construed as including references to the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir acting on the advice of his Council of Ministers" etc. - which require only a simple majority in LS and RS for ratification; unlike abrogation which would have required super majority (2/3rd) in LS and RS and 50% of Legislative Assemblies' consent!
2) Adequate security preparation to preempt riots or violent protests in J&K and
3) Creating two Union Territories from the J&K State for better control - until such time that "normalcy" returns or such time that Supreme Court overrules this action (I believe such constitutional challenge in SC takes 2 to 3 years to resolve)!!

Now, going forward, what is needed is easy for BJP to do:
1) Modi to address the nation - an emotional speech invoking Nationalism and painting the opposition (those who are against neutralising of 370) parties as "traitors" - his address is scheduled for 7th August, i.e. tomorrow.
2) Manage preservation of relative peace in J&K - no riots or violent protests must be allowed to occur (this requires heavy security presence and superior intelligence compared to typical communal riots - at present it is estimated between 400K and 500K security forces are present in J&K) and
3) Unambiguously portray the action of neutralising of Article 370 as an internal matter of India - International community or UN are expected to agree to this stance of India.

I had felt for a long time that knocking out discriminatory provisions like Articles 370 or 371 etc. have been falsely perceived to be very risky steps - the fears were grossly exaggerated much like the Y2K bug was at the turn of the century! After all, Nehru had annexed Goa and nothing untoward had happened. India is a big country and if its security is adversely affected in any geography within its borders, then surely no country is going to object to India taking suitable action in that region. J&K was militarily under India's control, what was missing was constitutional control. Thanks to some guts and wit shown by BJP leadership, this is happening now. Though the idea of obtaining consent from the Governor; presently J&K is under President's rule - which is same as Centre's rule, instead of the Legislative Assembly is bound to be challenged in court, just as much as the idea of converting a State into a UT, Amit Shah, should be given 9/10 if not, 10/10 as a the Home Minister for pulling off this coup of sorts. Modi and Shah are expected to go to town with their accomplishment. The opposition to neutralising of Article 370 may well disappear after a few months of campaigning by Modi and Amit Shah so much so that even its abrogation requiring super majority may work equally well, just in case the Supreme Court over turns everything in the President's notification of 5th August, 2019.  

All Indians, including Kashmiris, have paid a big price for carrying the Article 370, well past its sell date, all these years. It has cost over 45K human lives in 29 years (see foot-note #2) and stunted the progress of a whole generation in J&K. Now onwards this should change. Good for India and Kashmiris.

#1 Presidential Notification:


MINISTRY OF LAW AND JUSTICE
(Legislative Department)
NOTIFICATION
New Delhi, the 5th August, 2019
G.S.R .551(E).- the following Order made by the President is published for general information:-
THE CONSTITUTION (APPLICATION TO JAMMU AND KASHMIR) ORDER, 2019
C.O. 272
In exercise of the powers conferred by clause (1) of article 370 of the Constitution, the President, with the concurrence of the Government of State of Jammu and Kashmir, is pleased to make the following Order:-
1. (1) This Order may be called the Constitution (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) Order, 2019.
(2) It shall come into force at once, and shall thereupon supersede the Constitution (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) Order, 1954 as amended from time to time.
2. All the provisions of the Constitution, as amended from time to time, shall apply in relation to the State of
Jammu and Kashmir and the exceptions and modifications subject to which they shall so apply shall be as follows:-
To article 367, there shall be added the following clause, namely:-
"(4) For the purposes of this Constitution as it applies in relation to the State of Jammu and Kashmir-
(a) references to this Constitution or to the provisions thereof shall be construed as references to the Constitution or the provisions thereof as applied in relation to the said State;
(b) references to the person for the time being recognized by the President on the recommendation of the Legislative Assembly of the State as the Sadar-i-Riyasat of Jammu and Kashmir, acting on the advice of the Council of Ministers of the State for the time being in office, shall be construed as references to the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir;
(c) references to the Government of the said State shall be construed as including references to the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir acting on the advice of his Council of Ministers; and
(d) in proviso to clause (3) of article 370 of this Constitution, the expression "Constituent Assembly of the State referred to in clause (2)" shall read "Legislative Assembly of the State"."
#2 Cost of Human Lives in Kashmir since 1990 (from TOI of 6th Aug'19)


Sunday, June 23, 2019

Electoral reforms - Online voting and funding reforms needed; Not One Nation One Election

Updated: 21-Sep-2023

ग़रीब लहरों पे पहरे बिठाए जाते हैं,
और समन्दरों की तलाशी कोई नहीं लेता.....
~ वसीम बरेलवी


Given one hour to save the world, I would spend 55 minutes defining the problem and 5 minutes finding the solution.


~ Albert Einstein



The real problem of our democracy is i) how to get more numbers of honest and smart people in positions of power and ii) how to make the Government more responsive. Electoral reforms are a large part of the solution. Common lament we hear is that politics is a dirty business and only crooks enter and thrive in it - qualifications or track record of public service or philanthropy matter little. This is ofcourse mostly untrue, however, there is no gainsaying that money swings the election results. If we dig deeper we can easily find the larger part of the problem - it is the system and the play it gives to dirty money that is the culprit and not the politician or the wannabe politican!



WHY THIS BLOG IS IMPORTANT:
 

PM Modi has been asking for the reform of syncing State Elections (MLAs) and Local Government Elections with General Elections (MPs); he has even constituted a panel for this purpose. This gives an opportunity to discuss election reforms holistically. The reform of "One Nation One Election" a.k.a. #One-Nation-One-Poll, can be substituted by another set of reforms with all the claimed benefits and more. Protagonists of 1N1P  need to be educated. In the interdependent triad of contributors to progress of the nation: PEOPLE - POLICIES - SYSTEMS - we should start with the "SYSTEMS" reform because it is doable with the flick of a pen and it will have a significant and immediate impact. The current election system is such that more honest and smart candidates likely lose elections and those who bend the rules (or their party does) likely win elections. Fortunately, today India has the digital public infrastructure and a flexible Constitution (capable of amendments), therefore, we can attempt to undertake what is proposed here - a set of urgent "rules reforms" (can do before 2024) and "online voting systems reforms" (during 2024-2029). These reforms can be done through the existing "democratic system" - a revolution is not called for. Most politicians, but not all, will likely resist this change, so, public pressure will be necessary - people must understand and demand this change. Public pressure is required for i) reforms (discussed in this blog) and also ii) to have ECI (Election Commission of India) conduct free and fair elections: respond to complaints, manage and act against MCC violations and observe full transparency (allow audit of source code as well as processes used in handling EVMs and VVPATs). Serious violations and anomalies have been reported by Citizens Commission on Elections (CCE) 


The idea of syncing all elections conflicts with the spirit of the existing federal structure envisaged in the Constitution of India. If the benefit we are looking for is to cut time and cost of conducting elections, debate should centre on leveraging the Digital Public Infrastructure  (DPI) we already have.


We know there are monetary and non-monetary costs of conducting elections 
(1- footnote).

For e.g. the 2019 Lok Sabha (Parliamentary) elections are estimated to have cost USD 7.5 to 10 Billion, i.e. Rs.60K to 80K Crores - of which at least Rs.50K crores was spent by candidates and their parties and Rs. 9K crores was Government's share of expenditure. After syncing all elections, i.e. General Elections, State Elections and Local Government or Panchayat Elections, it is hard to guess what the total expense will balloon to. 

 

The official declared income of BJP and INC is less than 10% of the abovementioned election expense figure (Visit Myneta ADR website for all details)! In other words, the elections are conducted with massive amount of money mobilised and spent under the table - one can imagine the quid pro quo in such transactions and the inevitable corruption that ensues. If we stack up the costs of State level and Panchayat level elections, the total will be staggering - likely to be few lacs of crore rupees and the quid pro quos several lacs of crore rupees. The cost of the government employees and security forces deployed to oversee these elections is invisible. The deployment of millions of staff, results in lost productivity and loss of school time as teachers and school resources are extensively requisitioned in organising elections. Due to logistical reasons, elections in many states stretch over several weeks!

The non-monetary costs include the adverse effects of governments going into seizure due to MCC - Model Code of Conduct which gets kicked in ahead of election dates. The government is not allowed to announce policies and it cannot roll out plans that may seem to influence the voters.

The dominant BJP and INC national parties have their leaders over stretched due to perpetual election cycles; the regional parties are not unhappy with the current situation; they likely view with suspicion the debate over syncing elections. Check Election Commission of India: ECI recognises 6 or 7 political parties as national parties. BJP is reputed to win elections because of Modi ji's personal popularity which made the 2019 Parliament (Lok Sabha) elections look like a Presidential election. PM Modi has also come to believe that he alone is sufficient to win all elections. His recent boast in the Parliament (Rajya Sabha) on 9-Feb-23:"
एक अकेला कितनों पे भारी पड़ता है "! PM Modi wants to sync elections ostensibly to save costs but in his heart, he may be wanting the elections to become Presidential type.

To tamp down the abovementioned monetary and non-monetary costs, Modi ji has proposed a debate on "One Nation One Election". The democratic system envisaged in the Constitution of India requires a five-year term provided the government has a majority of members in the house, if it loses the majority and an alternative government cannot be formed, elections have got to be triggered within a stipulated period of x months. Therefore, this rule will conflict with the proposition of One Nation One Election as soon as any Government collapses before x months remain in its 5-year tenure. A constitutional amendment will be required to compress or stretch the period of tenure that remains in every case of premature cessation of a Government to sync all elections.

Rather than amend the constitution to accommodate the 1N1P idea, is it not better to discuss how to make elections less costly and quicker? No one seems to be debating this question!

Practically, all resident Indians and overseas Indian citizens, who are eligible voters, today have Aadhaar IDs. Over 1.3 billion (over 99.8% of all adults) Aadhaar Ids generated

 

WHAT WE NEED TO DO

 

Aadhaar should be passed as a security bill - at present it is emasculated by the order of the SCI because Aadhaar was passed as a Money Bill - Modi Government was scared so it bypassed obtaining voting in Rajya Sabha by legislating Aadhaar as a Money Bill. SCI has therefore, curtailed mandatory applications of Aadhaar to financial benefit (transactions) schemes or tax compliance issues like PAN linkage with Aadhaar. (Myths about mandatory use of Aadhaar and risks of sharing Aadhaar number). Those who apprehend risks due to Aadhaar linkage with voter ID should read: Common misconceptions about Aadhaar.

 

First, the past lapse of passing Aadhaar as a money bill has to be rectified so that necessary legislative support is provided for allowing Aadhaar to be used in non-monetary applications like the security and ID authentication, required in our voting system. The latter proposition is certainly likely to find acceptance with all parties - provided BJP and GOI make their intentions explicit. 

With today's DPI in India, it is very easy to conduct electronic online voting. First step, as mentioned above, is to get the legislative support to mandate linking the Voter Card (proof of citizenship) with Aadhaar Id (proof of Id) - this will ensure there are no duplicates in the voter database AND all voters are authenticated every time they vote. This process will also include the process of syncing names on the two cards - it is estimated that more than 80% of the people have mismatching names between their Aadhaar and Voter ID cards. 

 

Without a data protection act, it would have been justifiably considered objectionable to link Aadhaar with Voter ID. Recently THE DIGITAL PERSONAL DATA PROTECTION ACT, 2023 has been notified in the Gazette of India (11-Aug-23). Voting as we all know follows the "secret ballot" code. Computer program can be written such that no one can find out the identity of a voter without authorisation and now the notified Data Protection Act will (hopefully) curb mala fide authorisation to any agent of the government. In the voting application program, it is necessary to ensure that at the time of voting, the voter's biometrics be authenticated to prevent proxy voting i.e. it is necessary to ensure that a person in wrongful possession of a Voter card (Voter ID credentials) is not voting. In this application VIRTUAL ID (VID) for authentication cannot serve the purpose. VID is issued by UIDAI and it is meant to prevent profiling - i.e. pulling data from different applications databases in which Aadhaar is seeded. Since we want to deduplicate individuals having multiple Voter cards and authenticate a voter every time, it is necessary to link Aadhaar. Read about VID here.


HOW WILL THE PROPOSED ONLINE VOTING SYSTEM WORK

 

Online (INTERENT) voting can enable citizens to vote from anywhere in the country. One of the reasons for "low voter turnout" is migrant population - huge number of people are not available in their constituency on the day of voting. At the time of doing online voting, as already mentioned, the voter would be asked to submit biometric authentication - this ensures the eligible person is voting - multiple time voting can be allowed in the time window announced for voting - only the last vote will count. Those who do not have biometrics submission device will need to visit any ECI authorised mobile services centre or any bank branch to vote - for a small fee of Rs. 2 - 10 (which would be reimbursed to the agency by ECI online - citizen will not pay for the first time). There will be no need to set up booths and requisition millions of teachers for election duty at the time of voting. (See linked notes below - current cost to ECI is above Rs.100 per vote cast).


The above arrangement will drop the election costs drastically (by over 90%) - logistics will be highly simplified. Migrant workers, estimated to be between 10% to 20% of total voters, who are not present in their constituency on the days of voting, will be able to exercise their franchise. In 2019 LS Elections, ONLY 67% of the eligible voters actually voted - in Bombay the voting turnout was only 55% - with online anytime-anywhere voting facilities, the polling percentage would have been higher. Areas without Internet access, are already being served by satellite linked (through VSATs) CSCs (Common Services Centres); despite this, if there are pockets not served by CSCs then ECI will have to improvise suitable "CSCs".

 

BENEFITS OF ONLINE VOTING

 

With successful introduction of online voting, India will not only save enormous cost and time, it could derive many other benefits. Voting participation will improve SIGNIFICANTLY as all of the migrant workers will be able to vote from wherever they happen to be on the dates of polling; the sheer convenience will pull many more voters. 

 

OTHER MAJOR REFORMS THAT WILL BECOME FEASIBLE DUE TO ONLINE VOTING:

 

O1.     Two-round system (TRS) of voting in place of the FPTP (First-Past-The-Post) currently followed: If TRS is adopted, in the first round if the top candidate fails to secure 50%+ votes, a run-off election round will get triggered. In a modified TRS, in the run-off round, only the top two candidates (instead of all candidates having polled above x% votes) will be allowed to participate. With online voting, the cost of conducting the TRS elections will NOT be a barrier and democratic representation will become stronger as we will ensure that the winner has 50%+ votes. TRS will overcome a lot of maladies. A major defect in the FPTP system due to which opposition parties with similar ideologies, but one which is opposite of the winning party's ideology, lose out as their votes get split and the "majority" party wins despite obtaining fewer votes (i.e. less than the combined votes of the opposition parties). In FPTP system, the winning party can win disproportionate number of seats compared to its share of votes. For e.g. in 2019 LS Elections, BJP won 303 or 55.8% seats (=303/543) even though the party obtained only 37.36% of the polled votes. [The NDA alliance, which included BJP, won 353 seats with 45% of votes]. Net effect of FPTP system is that a Government can be formed by a party formation with an ideology that is rejected by the majority -this is the case at present. With TRS, this situation would not arise even if parties with opposing but similar ideologies (with respect to the dominant party's ideology) are not united in a prepoll alliance - because in the second round, the split votes will tend to coalesce in support of the only candidate remaining in the contest! [Unlike in USA and UK, where there are two dominant parties, in India for most seats, the contest is among multiple parties, therefore, the votes get split much more and the winning candidate often has a vote share well below 50%. FPTP thus has serious pernicious effects of "unrepresentative democracy" in countries where the elections are fought with many parties in the fray. Ref: Note on TRS vs FPTP for India.

O2.     Referendums can be introduced. Based on legislatures listing worthy issues for referendums, either quarterly or half-yearly or yearly referendums could be held at all levels of Government- National, State or Local Urban or Rural Governments. Referendums will make the Governments more responsive as people will get a greater voice. Legislators will tend to be more accountable.

Gradually the country can refine the election processes and graduate to having issue-based referendums, annually or half-yearly, like Switzerland and other Western democracies have. 

 

THE URGENT REFORM OF ELECTION (POLITICAL) FUNDING, EXPENSE AND TRANSPARENCY 

The five specific issues we should debate are categorised under two groups; there are three issues related to money and two related to transparency and accountability.

1. FUNDING AND EXPENSES RELATED

F1.1 Candidate expenses: The per candidate election expense cap must go - especially as there is no cap on the Political Party expenses. For MLAs and MPs at present the limit is Rs. 28 lacs to 95 lacs only. This preposterous rule places independent candidates (poor or billionaires - doesn't matter) or candidates of newbie and not-so-rich parties, at a tremendous disadvantage. The expense cap is only for candidates - there is no limit on expenses a party may incur in the candidate's constituency - in many constituencies, experts have calculated the expenses range between Rs.10 to Rs.70 crores (in MLA or MP contests). At present, parties disclose election expenses to match their income which is estimated to be less than 10% of their real expenses. This means 90% of expenses are off the books. So, the rules need to be modified in a way that candidates and parties can mobilise funds and spend legally. Present system forces both spending and mobilising to be done illegally - and it compels virtually every candidate to lie on oath about the real expenses incurred. And in this process honest and successful individuals who have no black money to fight elections, either don't enter politics or if they do, they likely lose elections to those who outspend them (illegally) - one example easy to cite is that of Nandan Nilekani (a technocrat billionaire) who contested for a MP's seat, on a Congress ticket and lost to a BJP opponent, in Bangalore - a city considered to be the IT Capital of India! No reform of any kind seems more important than the amendment of existing political (election) funding and expense limit rules that clearly diminish the chances of good, honest and successful people from getting into elected positions. When honest and smart people get into positions of power, one can expect to see reforms and policies that actually favour building a vibrant democracy - one that provides more voice to its citizens and also drives the future progress of India.

 

F1.2 Political funding: NO DONATION to a political party or a candidate should be hidden - there ought to be 100% transparency; anonymous political bonds must be abolished; the bonds tend to go to the ruling party (and it is not hidden from the ruling party, rather it is hidden from the opposition parties and the public). There should be a high cap (order of 50 or 100 crore rupees) on individual or corporate donations, including "permitted" foreign entity's donations. However, above a certain amount of donation, say Rs.5 lacs, there should be an obligation for a complete and detailed disclosure of donor's involvement in ANY government project which is ongoing or which is likely to start; also, of any action that Government has taken against the donor or the donor's brush with law. All donations must be listed on a website mandated by the ECI.


F1.3 State funding and resources support: Each party and candidate must publish their statement of objectives - and be asked to debate; these moderated debates should be on State-paid TV time and on all State-owned platforms which may syndicate the debate feeds to private channels - it is a big flaw in our system that today, candidates are not asked questions - related to new promises, public issues or old promises they may have made! The expensive rallies and physical meetings which involve extravagant preparations and costs will automatically decline if State-sponsored air time is made available - and, more importantly, candidates without monetary resources will be able to communicate with the electorate and give responses to researched questions of expert moderators. The televised debates could be recorded and catalogued on the ECI portal so that voters can access the same anytime (with translated scripts in different languages). Candidate accountability and a more informed electorate are very important in any democracy!

 

2. TRANSPARENCY RELATED

 

T2.1 Candidate disclosures: Candidate's disclosures of his/her qualifications, assets, liability, income criminal cases faced or ongoing and business transactions with Government departments or public enterprises in the form of an affidavit should be published on the ECI website (this is not being done for items mentioned in italics) AND number of complaints or challenges received by the ECI against claims in the candidate's affidavit, and those ECI has verified, along with the details should also be published.(this is not being done today - in fact complaints to ECI are ignored - it verifies nothing). ECI says it has no resources to investigate nor refer such cases to State agencies - this deficiency in the transparency system needs to be fixed by requiring and enabling ECI to settle complaints & challenges and regularly publish the status of its findings. 

T2.2 Party functioning transparency: Political Parties, particularly the "National Political Parties" so recognised by ECI, should be subjected to three rules -
i) they must be brought under the purview of RTI Act,
ii) they must publish their manifesto before each election AND
iii) they must publish their inner party constitutional framework and the audit report of its framework by ECI - it doesn't matter if the framework is "democratic" or "autocratic" or "dynastic"; ECI's audit stamp will merely confirm that the party is following the published framework. This is like the public disclosure a company makes before a public issue - ECI's stamp of audit merely confirms that the party practices are found to be in conformity with its stated constitutional framework - it is not an endorsement of any claims of the party being meritorious - which is a matter of voter's (informed) judgment.. 

 

CONCLUSION

 

To sum up, two sets of reforms are discussed above.
The set of urgent reforms related to money and transparency are capable of being implemented before the next General Election in 2024 - this could happen provided there is sufficient public pressure and / or a political will. These easy-to-do electoral reforms will help in putting honest and smart people in positions of power (as legislators).
The other high-tech reforms for making voting online anytime-anywhere and conducting referendums could be attempted by the legislators elected in the next General Elections (hopefully smarter and more honest), in five years: in 2024-2029. 
The high-tech reforms will make our democracy far more responsive than it is today; besides, the reforms will also save huge amounts of money (official and unofficial, private or public) and time we spend on electing MPs, MLAs, Corporators and Panchs! We can forget 1N1P and talk about the above reforms instead.

 

Epilogue:

 

After having been in information systems-designing-developing-deploying business for many decades, and having seen India's DPI, I have no doubt that we in India have the capacity and readiness to implement the online voting system described above. See below the transaction volumes we have crossed with two systems (UPI and Aadhaar, no other big country has equivalent systems); no country is close to achieving these volumes, forget beating these performances, USA, China and EU included:

 


We also have millions of Web cameras deployed with online monitoring in hundreds of applications. Each ECI authorised agent, e.g. bank branch, post-office, CSCs (5.21 lac of which 4.13 lac in rural India), TSP offices etc. during the voting time window could have surveillance webcams linked to ECI monitoring stations in which representatives of political parties could remain present so that voters who visit agents to vote could be watched - each transaction of vote would be time stamped (to correlate with recorded video, in case audit is required). This is one example of the future "voting booth" configuration; ultimately, after everyone becomes tech-savvy, even these "booths" could be eliminated.
The prefixes O,F and T in the numbered items above, are for referencing in Google Form.


End
=============XX==============

1- Footnote
The Indian Government structure envisages Central Government, State Government and Local Government. In the top two levels of the government there are nominated representatives otherwise representatives are directly elected by the citizens of India. The elections are not in sync so, the country seems to be perpetually in election mode.

At the top level, in the Indian parliament 543 seats of MPs are contested by close to 10K candidates! (Before 2020, two additional MPs were appointed by the President on the advice of the Government).

At the middle tier, in the Legislative Assemblies of the States, for about 4K MLA seats. tens of thousands candidates contest.

At the Panchayat or Municipal level local governments, for about 300K seats there may be over million contestants.

There were 897.8 million registered voters in the 2019 Parliamentary Elections of India.

Ref: http://www.elections.in/government/

Election expenses by candidates and parties Rs.50K to 80K crores

Government's expenses in conducting 2019 LS - also called General Elections - Rs.9,000 crores. Assuming there were 900 million eligible voters, the ECI expesne per voter = Rs.100

2- Footnote
Voting will be done with two factor authentication just like it is done with banking or credit card transactions; either with OTP or biometric authentication - voter's finger print or iris scan or facial recognition in future (VID cannot be used instead of Aadhaar).

RELEVANT REFERENCES:

State of ICT and internet voting worldwide: There are only two countries - Estonia and UAE which have implemented online voting for internal as well as external resident citizens - several other countries have more restricted usage of Internet voting.


Problems and issues with the existing system:





About 1N1P:



About role (abuse) of money power:


Knowledge:

Indian Parliamentary Elections 2019 - results data analysis


The land slide victory of BJP (303 seats) and shock losses suffered by INC (Indian National Congress) and many regional parties have been analysed by many in the press and TV debates. INC didn't win even 10% of the seats - with a tally of 52 seats it's leader doesn't qualify as the LOP (Leader of the Opposition Party) in the Parliament.

A cold analysis of data reveals a stark correlation expected due to religious polarisation. No amount of posturing by INC; temple hopping by Rahul Gandhi could enable it to outperform BJP as a pro-Hindu party. There is no great theory needed to explain the outcomes in different States; population data by religion is not available by parliamentary constituencies otherwise the hypothesis would be easier to validate.

There could be other reasons but probably they played a much smaller role - Balakot strike (pseudo nationalism) certainly seems to have helped according to most reporters. There are various pro-poor schemes which BJP claims have helped it to increase its vote share - Ujjwala Yojna (70 million LPG cooking gas cylinders allotment to poor families with initial fixed subsidy), Swachh Bharat Mission (96 Million toilets built and 565K out of 640K villages declared ODF - Open Defecation Free), Mudra Loan scheme (40 millions sanctioned loans aggregating to 2.5 Lac Crores - 2.5 trillion rupees), PM Sahaj Bijli Ghar Yojna (24.4 million households energised out of targeted 24.8 million HHs).

The detailed worksheet of state wise results (542 seats as one seat's election was cancelled by the Election Commission due to discovery of cash), seats contested, strike rate and correlation with Hindu and non-Hindu populations can be found here:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1IHQz3zlEF3vyuf_I8D_7FKU2R5xp1y0R

The argument that it was a vote for pro-incumbency which means for good governance is really vain. How come good governance was not experienced by the electorate in non-Hindu dominated regions?

It is clear that BJP increased its vote share from 31% in 2014 elections to 37.4% in 2019 elections mostly among Hindu voters. It is claimed that BJP increased its votes from among non-Hindu voters too. Actually it remained unchanged - only about 8% on non-Hindus are claimed to have voted for BJP - this is reported in press articles (one is hyperlinked below) - we don't have the data to prove this percentage in the worksheet.

References:


EC website shows seats won constituency wise:


The party wise State wise seats contested and seats won data can be found here besides much other data of election expenses, issues and manifestos:



Hindu share of population state wise from 2011 census:

https://www.census2011.co.in/data/religion/1-hinduism.html






Wire story - why Sikhs turned against BJP and favoured Congress

Another article by Venu Gopal highlights, the Election was not about economy (good governance):






LiveMint's analysis through ten charts:


Another LiveMint Article based on a CSDS survey - BJP's support base among Muslims remained unchanged @8%

Here are some interesting facts about the Indian electorate and 2019 elections:

Looking ahead: Congress will need to figure out how to win back the support of Hindus and show why India's progress cannot be helped by Hindu Supremacists! Hopefully, while BJP rules, it will also change and become more inclusive - at least to the extent it overtly claims: SAB KA SAATH SAB KA VIKAS AND VISHWAS! If one or both of these changes don't happen, India could be headed towards becoming Ram Rajya - a "Hindu Rashtra". A mirror image of Pakistan. That will be an India that lacks scientific temper - a medieval India. India that will build biggest temples and statues instead of spending resources on the education and health of it's citizens.