Tactical voting can play a big role: Lessons from Barmer and Ladakh poll results

Barmer, located in the hot Thar Desert of western Rajasthan bordering Pakistan, contrasts sharply with Ladakh’s cold Himalayan desert that borders China. Yet, in the 2024 general elections, these constituencies revealed notable parallels in polling patterns and political strategies.

Ladakh, the largest Lok Sabha constituency by area (173,266-sq-km), and Barmer, the second largest (71,601-sq-km), are dominated by two socially powerful communities.

In Ladakh, the electorate is broadly split between Buddhists in Leh and Shia Muslims of Kargil district in Suru valley. Barmer’s political landscape is shaped by local Jat and Rajput communities. For decades, the Lok Sabha representatives of both constituencies have hailed from these dominant groups.

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In this summer’s elections, both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress fielded candidates from the dominant communities—i.e., Jats in Barmer and Buddhists in Ladakh—for the two respective Lok Sabha seats.

This led to triangular contests in both constituencies, with independent candidates from the next-dominant communities also entering the fray.

In Barmer, Ravindra Singh Bhati, a Rajput and former member of the BJP- affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), fighting as an independent candidate, posed a significant challenge, while in Ladakh, Mohmad Haneefa, a Shia Muslim and National Conference rebel, stirred the political waters.

The 2024 electoral outcome: The Barmer Lok Sabha seat was won by Congress candidate Ummeda Ram Beniwal with a vote share of 41.74%. Independent candidate Ravindra Singh Bhati polled 34.74% votes and was the runner-up in this constituency, pushing the BJP’s Kailash Choudhary to a distant third with just 16.99% of all votes polled. 

The Ladakh Lok Sabha seat was decisively won by the independent candidate Mohmad Haneefa, who got a vote share of 48.15%, followed by the Congress’s Tsering Namgyal with 27.59% and the BJP’s Tashi Gyalson with 23.58%.

Vote-splitting impact: A closer look at the results reveals interesting trends. In Ladakh, there are almost an equal number of Shia and Buddhist voters, but the split in Buddhist votes benefitted the independent Shia candidate. 

Conversely, in Barmer, Jat voters consolidated support around the Congress candidate due to the weaker prospects they perceived of the BJP’s Jat candidate, even as a split in the pro-BJP vote between the BJP candidate and the ex-ABVP independent candidate contributed to the Congress’s victory.

Also read: Lok Sabha Polls: Congress, NC announce seat-sharing pact for Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh; to contest 3 seats each

In the assembly election held in November 2023, the BJP had secured a vote share of over 35% and emerged victorious in five out of eight assembly constituencies falling under the Barmer Lok Sabha seat, the Congress won just one assembly constituency, while the two BJP rebels won as independents in the remaining two assembly seats within the Barmer Lok Sabha constituency. 

Though the BJP candidate came third in polling for the Barmer Lok Sabha seat during the 2024 Parliamentary election, one should not conclude that the BJP does not have a support in the region. 

The party performance in assembly elections held just a few months earlier does indicate sizeable BJP’s support in Barmer as a Lok Sabha constituency. 

What seems to have worked against the BJP during Lok Sabha polls was tactical voting against the BJP candidate, resulting in his defeat at the hands of the Congress candidate in Barmer.

Tactical voting: This phenomenon played an important role in the victory of the Congress candidate from the Barmer Lok Sabha seat and of the independent candidate from the Ladakh seat. 

Voters often defected from their preferred parties, influenced by the first-past-the-post electoral system, concerns about wasted votes and strategic calculations about the ‘winnability’ of candidates. 

There is also a psychological effect that leads to concerns that votes will be wasted; the typical Indian voter has a keen interest in the outcome and does not want his or her vote to be wasted. This strategic deviation led to a significant chunk of BJP voters supporting the independent candidate in Barmer to prevent a Congress win. 

While how many voters actually vote for parties other than their most favourite one is still an open question, the propensity of voters to desert their favourite party appears true when strategic considerations enter the picture.

Also read: Lok Sabha Elections 2024: J-K records highest voter turnout in 35 years, says Election Commission

In the context of Ladakh and Barmer, tactical voting yielded divergent outcomes in terms of ideological and community representation. In Ladakh, despite two candidates of the same ideological background, one of them won comfortably, whereas in Barmer, both candidates aligned with the same ideology lost. 

Further, while Ladakh’s election saw both candidates from the dominant community lose, Barmer witnessed one of the two candidates from the dominant group triumph.

This nuanced electoral behaviour underscores the complexity of Indian politics, where electoral dynamics, community identities, party ideologies, psychological factors in the context of wasted votes, perceptions of ‘winnability’ and strategic voting intersect in unexpected ways, shaping the political landscape of regions as distinct and diverse as Barmer and Ladakh.

These are the authors’ personal views.