Lok Sabha polls: The hot election has more heat around it (2024)

As a scorching summer begins, investors are looking for winning stocks that can rise on a heat wave. Shares of air cooler makers and power generators have already rallied even as hot summer can singe several other sectors such as those linked to agricultural output. But the impact of heat waves is not limited to business and economy. Even politicians are worried about the heat.

Also Read: Election Commission sweats over missing summer collection

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has warned of extreme heat during the April-June period when around a billion people are expected to exercise their franchise during the seven-phase Lok Sabha elections, heightening concerns about vulnerability to heat waves. Voting for the first phase of elections took place on April 19. Four to eight heatwave days are expected in different parts of the country in April against a normal of one to three days. Ten to twenty days of heatwave are expected against a normal of four to eight days in the entire April-June period, the IMD has said. Intense heat swept large swathes of India on Sunday, with maximum temperatures settling four to six degrees Celsius above normal in many areas.

Fewer people coming out to vote has become a matter of concern for parties as well as candidates.

Heat cools the voter spirits?

Concerned over the drop of nearly three percentage points in overall voter turnout in the first phase of Lok Sabha elections this year as compared to 2019, with the decline recorded in 19 of the 21 states and Union territories that voted on Friday, the Election Commission will be making a mid-poll correction in its strategy to boost turnout, TOI has reported.

While the summer heat is not yet the determinant or deterrent factor, it is seen as one of the chief reasons for low turnout besides voter apathy/fatigue and young voters choosing to stay away.

Though the polling percentage has inched up since Friday as more reports from remote polling stations came in - with the latest figure now 66% and expected to rise further by at least 0.1-0.2 percentage points - it is still way short of the 69.2% turnout recorded in 2019 for the same 102 constituencies where polling has been completed.

Among the states and UTs, only three states - Chhattisgarh, Meghalaya and Sikkim - saw higher turnouts as compared to 2019. Nagaland witnessed 57.7% turnout, over 25 percentage points less than in 2019. The decline in Manipur was 7.7 percentage points, in Madhya Pradesh over 7 percentage points and in Rajasthan and Mizoram over 6 percentage points.

Bihar recorded the lowest turnout at 49.2%; even if this did not take the EC by surprise as the poll covered a Left-wing extremism-affected area, the corresponding turnout in 2019 was higher at 53.47%. UP too saw the turnout slip to 61.1% from 66.5%. The two states where polling has been completed - Tamil Nadu and Uttarakhand - saw the turnouts going south as well. In Tamil Nadu, it fell to 69.7% to 72.1% despite the big-ticket campaign that saw DMK and BJP trading barbs over the controversial 'sanatan dharma' comment by Tamil Nadu minister Udhaynidhi Stalin. Uttarakhand too saw lesser voter enthusiasm, with the turnout there dipping to 57.2% from 61.5% in 2019. West Bengal, which has been a high-turnout state, saw an impressive turnout at 81.9% but even this was less than the 2019 figure of 84.7%.

Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) Pune has released an advisory, asking the election commission and local administration to make adequate arrangements.

“All campaigns and rallies should be planned with the heat impacts factored in. IMD will disseminate heat wave forecasts that should be followed, awareness campaigns, shaded waiting areas, hydration stations, cooling centres, healthcare facilities, flexible attire guidelines, transportation arrangements and outreach to vulnerable communities must be prioritised,” said former IMD director general Dr KJ Ramesh.

Soaring temperature has forced many Lok Sabha poll candidates to modify their campaigning style and schedule, besides taking measures to ensure well-being of their supporters as well as themselves, TOI has reported. Avoiding campaigning between noon and 4 pm, wearing light, comfortable clothes, sporting hats and sunglasses and tanking up on fluids: these are some of the steps that candidates and their poll managers have adopted to recalibrate their campaign strategies amid the scorching heat. The EC, too, had issued an advisory ahead of the elections following IMD declaring the country’s possibility of a hotter start to the summer. It has directed that polling booths must have coolers, drinking water facilities, ORS, etc.

Who will face the heat?

While the link between voter turnout and temperatures may not be conclusive yet since there could be several other factors too at work, low turnout might worry political parties.

Many may think that the BJP could be worried more than other parties since it aims to cross the 370 number of seats and an ambitious 400 mark for its bloc of parties, the NDA. Besides the summer heat, another factor behind low turnout of the BJP voter could be the general expectation of the BJP coming back to power. But low voter turnout can have different implications for different parties in different constituencies. If the summer heat will keep away more of the BJP's voters or the voters of the opposition parties can't be said. Therefore, a low voter turnout can be equally worrisome for all parties.

It is generally believed that a higher voter turnout than previous elections reflects an anti-incumbency sentiment while a lower voter turnout shows less desire to oust the incumbent.

The 2014 Lok Sabha elections, in which Narednra Modi led the BJP to a victory, winning 282 seats and reducing the main incumbent Congress to mere 44, saw the highest-ever voter turnout in India with 66.4% of the electorate casting vote. In the previous Lok Sabha elections held in 2009, voter turnout was 58.21%. The previous highest was 64.01%, recorded in 1984 when the Congress under Rajiv Gandhi won more than 400 seats. However, when the Modi government returned to power in 2019, the voter turnout was slightly higher than the 2014 elections, thus contradicting the linkage between higher turnout and anti-incumbency.

After the 2012 assembly elections in Gujarat, Modi, then the incumbent chief minister, had said that higher voter turnout in those elections had disproved the anti-incumbency theory. The turnout was the highest-ever at more than 70%. Modi had said that the impressive percentage will force political experts to consider the "pro-incumbency" factor in their discussions.

(With inputs from TOI)