Winnability in non-reserved seats

In our last post, we have seen the extent to which parties give tickets to SC/ST candidates in non-reserved constituencies. In this post, we will compare the performance of SC/ST candidates with their general counterparts.

Here, we define relative winnability as the ratio of win% of group and total win%. That is, how much more often does a group win compared to the average.

At the national level, relative winnability of ST candidates is more than SC candidate. Yet, ST candidates are given less seats in non-reserved seats.

Part-wise relative winnability of general, SC, ST candidate at non-reserved seats are:

Overall, most parties have higher general candidate winnability in non-reserved constituencies. BSP and LJP incurred heavy losses at places where it fielded SC/ST candidates. There seems to be a direct correlation between losses incurred by a party which gave higher share of seats to SC candidates. For example, BSP and LJP were highly inclined to give general seats to SC candidate and lost most of these seats.

In these analysis, we came across some interesting cases like:

• SP lost all the general seats where it fielded a SC candidate and won only one general seat where it fielded ST candidate.
• CPM, CPI, JD(U) lost all the general seats where it fielded a ST candidate.
• Though LJP fields many SC/ST candidates in general seats, it didn’t win any of these seats.

There are quite few mainstream parties which give non-reserved seats to SC/ST candidates. It’s another story how the general public have voted in reserved seats. We shall take that it in another series.