Delhi is set to vote for its next government on Wednesday after a heated campaign trail. However, as cash transfers and welfare targeting took centre stage, air quality, which has been consistently ‘poor’ since November in an annual pattern, was noticeably missing in campaigning across parties. The political class’ neglect of public goods, such as the air we breathe, is commonplace across the world. Academics trace one argument behind this to the first-past-the-post (FPTP) structure of the Indian voting system.
Under FPTP, the candidate with the highest number of votes in a constituency wins, even if they fall short of the majority. In a multi-party race, this can result in situations where a candidate can win a seat with less than 30% of votes (put differently, that’s a thumbs-down from 70% of voters). The runner-up in this example, even with a 29% vote share, wouldn’t gain any commensurate influence in legislation: The ‘winner takes all’.
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