TOI TRYING TO BELITTLE MODI's VICTORY!

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/lok-sabha-elections-2014/news/BJPs-31-lowest-vote-share-of-any-party-to-win-majority/articleshow/35315930.cms

The author of this article has tried his best to belittle the victory of the BJP by twisting facts beyond recognition. He has been in a great hurry and probably is not aware that there are different electoral systems, all totally democratic.

The article starts with a false conclusion. You cannot compare the winning percentage of the votes of 1967 with that of 2014 because the number of parties sharing the votes has enormously increased. If there were 2 parties then, the minimum winning percentage will be 51; but when there are 4 parties, the minimum percentage will be 26.

"Not even one in three chose BJP" exclaims the author.  This statement will be true only if people had been asked to vote in its favour or against it. As the number of contesting parties increases and also depending upon the degree of competition, the winning percentage will vary. In a party, if there are two dishes, the percentage of people choosing one or the other will be very near 50. But if there are ten dishes, while not all of them will be liked equally, depending upon the number of dishes more liked, even the best of the dishes is unlikely to get a percentage near 50. When that is the case, the author of this article is comparing 550 parties and wonders how one particular dish could come out as the best when it was liked by around 30 percent of people only. He also forgets that the question before the voters was whom they would LIKE to elect as their representative. Not whom they hate most!

The author is probably confusing our system of election with that followed in Germany.  There the votes polled for each party is totaled and a percentage is worked in proportion to the total votes cast. Based on that percentage each party is then allotted seats in Bundestag  (their Parliament) proportionately. Another way of election is the one followed by us for electing Rajya Sabha members. It is called single transferable vote. In that system every voter lists all candidates he might chose in the order of his preference. In France they follow a system, where the candidate who polls first 50% of votes is declared elected and if none gets 50%, only the top two candidates again compete to determine who gets more than 50% of votes.