Presidential Form of Government: What Could be the Possible Results?

Asoke K. Laha, President and CEO, Interra Information Technologies

Elections in India just got over.  While contemplating what I should write for this column, a thought has come to me: why not write on something which no one has written so far, to the best of my knowledge? Friends, I am not going to impose any insights of mine on what the just-over elections portend.

A strange idea took over me in the last few days since the election results have been pouring through all available media, experts' opinions for and against amidst the poor performance of psephologists, who this time around, had to eat a humble pie since none or most of the predictions were way off the mark..

Yet, I have a penchant for data mining not necessarily using the AI tools or sophisticated software that, I am told, can give accurate results. Going by the predictions and predilections of the current crop of pollsters in India, I am doubtful whether they can come out with any reliable predictions. One good thing is that Indian polity tends to forget and forgive the pollsters and as state elections are approaching, they will indulge in the same game.

Let me come down to the data mining that I have been doing. I thought about what could be India’s election results if we followed the American Presidential model, winner takes all. To those who have to be initiated into those concepts, let me explain a bit.  The American system of electing the President demands that all aspirants be there in flesh and blood and they have to undergo a lot of drills before they are chosen by their respective political affiliations for contesting elections. It is a long process, which I am sure this august audience will be well aware of because the mass media across the world publicize such arduous drills, giving almost every day, a matrix of who is up and who is down.  The process of the sitting president who is seeking a second term may be relatively less arduous till the time he or she is nominated. The reason perhaps could be that he had undergone the same drill when he was nominated to be a presidential nominee by his political affiliation. Once nominated, the person’s chances of winning and losing are measured at regular intervals.

Now about the winner-takes-all concept. It may sound crazy in the Indian context. In the just-concluded election in India, there were two political formations: NDA and INDIA. Assuming that if NDA bagged 41 seats in Uttar Pradesh, the largest state in India having 80 Parliamentary seats, all 80 seats will be credited to the NDA since it has got the majority of seats in the elections. That principle is applied to every state, however big or small that state may be.

My data mining, you may call crude, has been ferreted out of such assumptions. My data mining was to find out who would win if India had conducted an American system of election based on winner-takes-all. That is crediting the party securing the largest number of seats as against the total number of seats.. This time around, INDIA won, I believe 43 seats in Uttar Pradesh. Going by the concept of winner-takes-all, the entire 80 seats will go to INDIA.  Similarly, in Bihar, there are 40 seats, where NDA won 30 seats. Therefore, the entire 40 seats will go into the credit of NDA.  

I tried to do an exercise, so to say, data mining, to find out whether there could be a different result to the present one where NDA got 293 and INDIA bagged 234. For a while, I thought INDIA may have an advantage because of their higher tally of 80 in Uttar Pradesh, which has almost double the number of seats as that of West Bengal with 42. Maharashtra, which has the second highest number of seats-48-also went with Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry together accounting for 40 seats, which has fallen on the lap of INDIA.

I almost made up my mind that I made a headline since I did not think anyone else had done that exercise. When I added up the numbers, a different picture emerged. Even after gobbling up the states with the largest number of seats, it could not go beyond 245, whereas NDA had grossed over 251. Now, you may ask why the total of both NDA and INDIA does not add up to the total of   543. There lies the catch. I thought my repeated calculations would have gone for a toss. Then I realized that there are states where NDA and INDIA (or independents)  have equal numbers of seats. They are Telangana, which has 17 seats, Haryana, which has 10 seats, and Jammu and Kashmir where there are 5 seats, shared equally by both NDA and INDIA, leaving one seat for an independent candidate. Dadar and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, 2 seats and Goa , 2 seats.  Besides, 16 others do not belong to any of these party affiliations but won the election.

The US has its formula for resolving such a stalemate. Since India does not have a presidential form of Government, I thought to exclude the states that did not show any party getting a majority for computational sake. Arithmetically, that will not make any material difference in the numbers.

Let me dwell on some of the takeaways of the uncalled-for crude data mining. It did not make any material difference. In the assumed presidential form of elections also, NDA has the upper hand, but margin is wafer thin. It works out 247 for INDIA and a shade better for NDA at 251, a difference of just 4 seats, but not crossing the majority mark. The game could have been wide open. Alas, we do not have a presidential form of government; but an eye opener for those propound that form of government and those who are against it.