The NDA may just make it past the majority mark, says a poll of opinion polls Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP will win 228 seats in the national election and, along with its allies in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), may just make it past the majority mark, says a poll of opinion polls published in March and April. Opinion polls also predict that the Rahul Gandhi-led Congress will double its dismal 2014 tally to 88 seats but that is unlikely to help the party much in its mission to defeat the BJP. The Congress, along with its allies, may win around 140 seats. Other parties and independents, predicted to win 129 seats, may become an important factor. A party or alliance needs 272 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha to take power at the centre. The national election beginning Thursday will be held in seven rounds of voting across the country. The results will be declared on May 23. The Samajwadi Party-BSP combination is set to take away a big chunk - 36 seats - from the BJP's gigantic 2014 score of 71 in Uttar Pradesh. The Akhilesh Yadav-Mayawati alliance may contribute to a plunge in BJP's tally in UP to 40, opinion polls suggest. In Bihar, the BJP, Janata Dal United and other NDA partners may hit the jackpot with 31 of the state's 40 seats. The RJD and the Congress will be limited to just nine seats, say opinion polls. The polls suggest that down south, Jagan Mohan Reddy's YSR Congress and K Chandrasekhara Rao's Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) are set to be the big winners. Jagan Reddy's party may sweep 21 of Andhra Pradesh's 25 seats, leaving only four for the state's ruling Telugu Desam Party of Chandrababu Naidu. In neighbouring Telangana, the ruling TRS is likely to win 14 of the 17 Lok Sabha seats. The Congress could win two, say the polls. The national election beginning Thursday will be held in seven rounds of voting across the country. The results will be declared on May 23. Health warning: opinion polls often get it wrong<doc-sep>It is a widely accepted fact that the Bharatiya Janata Party’s fate in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections rests largely on its performance in the Hindi heartland. In a recent article, we had reported the results of a prediction exercise regarding the outcomes of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh – the most populous Hindi heartland state. Our results showed that if voting trends in the recent past are good predictors of current voting patterns, then the BJP could lose 40 seats in Uttar Pradesh. In this article, we extend our analysis to five more Hindi heartland states. While we would have liked to carry out the prediction exercise for all the ten Hindi heartland states – Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh – limitations of data prevent us from doing so. Our prediction exercise is based on extrapolating voting trends observed in the recent past. Only six of the ten Hindi heartland states have had assembly elections in the past two years: Chhattisgarh (2018), Himachal Pradesh (2017), Madhya Pradesh (2018), Rajasthan (2018), Uttarakhand (2017) and Uttar Pradesh (2017). The other four states had assembly elections in 2014 or 2015. We do not feel confident of using trends on voting from so far back in the past. The six states we looked at are immensely important for the BJP. Together, they account for 154 seats in the Lower House: Uttar Pradesh (80), Madhya Pradesh (29), Rajasthan (25), Chhattisgarh (11), Uttarakhand (5) and Himachal Pradesh (4). In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, BJP won 142 of the 154 seats from these states. Thus, these six states gave BJP exactly half of its total seat tally of 283. How will BJP perform in these states in the ongoing elections to the Lok Sabha? To answer this question, we have used the same methodology that was the basis of our results in the previous article. Also read | In Jharkhand, the BJP Is Set to Lose Some Ground Our method starts by identifying all the assembly constituencies in a parliamentary constituency. Then we add up the votes for each of the major parties in the assembly constituencies that make up a parliamentary constituency. We do the same to get the total number of votes cast in a parliamentary constituency. Dividing the former by the latter gives us the vote share of each party at the parliamentary constituency level. We then use this number to predict the vote share for each party at the parliamentary constituency level in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Finally, we choose the party or alliance with the largest vote share as the winner of the seat. The results of our prediction exercise for the six Hindi heartland states are summarised in Table 1, and Figure 1 and 2. In each of these states, the BJP will lose vote share. The smallest loss in terms of vote share will be seen in Uttar Pradesh (2.8%), followed by 5.25% in Himachal Pradesh, 8.79% in Himachal Pradesh, 13% in Madhya Pradesh, and about 16% each in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. While the loss of vote share is important, its conversion in terms of loss of seats is more important. The loss in terms of seats is much more dramatic. If voting patterns in the recent past are good predictors of current voting trends, then BJP could face a deficit of 75 parliamentary seats in these six states alone vis-à-vis its performance in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. It will lose the most in Uttar Pradesh – a total of about 44 seats. But it will lose significantly in terms of seats in three other states: 12 seats in Rajasthan, 10 seats in Madhya Pradesh and 9 seats in Chhattisgarh. It is only in the two smaller states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand that the BJP will manage to retain its tally of seats. Although BJP lost only three percentage point vote share in UP, the loss of seats is disproportionally high. The reason is the mahagathbandhan or grand alliance comprising of the Bahujan Samaj Party, Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Lok Dal. This alliance is likely to consolidate votes and put the BJP on the back foot. In other states, the contest between the BJP and Congress is almost bi-polar, and other parties do not figure prominently. Thus, in states other than UP, the loss of seats of the BJP can be entirely attributed to the loss of vote share. Can our prediction go wrong? State-level voting patterns for assembly elections may not be repeated in the all-India Lok Sabha election, where the BJP, a national party, could gain more traction. The larger-than-life image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi still has purchase among the masses. And last but not the least, the BJP has more financial resources than its rivals. While these points are important, in the specific context of the six Hindi heartland states that we have looked at, they might not have lot of salience. This is because, in all states other than UP, the fight is between the Congress and BJP, both of which are national parties. Hence neither can be ignored as a regional player. In UP, on the other hand, the formation of the mahagathbandhan has created the possibility of nullifying the BJP’s advantage as a national party. The ongoing agrarian crisis, the negative shock of demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax, and lacklustre growth of employment opportunities have hardly been dealt with. If, as seems likely, these were the factors that prompted BJP’s poor electoral showing in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh four months ago, then they may have an impact on the Lok Sabha election results too. How this debacle in the six Hindi heartland states will impact BJP’s overall performance depends, of course, on how it does in the other states (that we have not included in our analysis). But it is extremely doubtful that the BJP will be able to recoup, from other states, any significant part of this deficit of 75 parliamentary seats. Deepankar Basu is associate professor in the Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst.<doc-sep>Text Size: A- A+ With just two phases of Lok Sabha elections left, all eyes are on the counting day, 23 May. So far, we have heard two kinds of accounts. Post-Pulwama and Balakot, we had a number of opinion polls and forecasts predict that the BJP would be clearly ahead, and well placed to form the next government. Now, with the beginning of polling and the ban on forecasting, we have seen a vast range of ground reports in the media. Most of these reports suggest a mixed picture: a ‘setback’ for the BJP in the first two phases in Uttar Pradesh, vigorous campaign by the opposition in Bihar, the AIADMK-led alliance queering the pitch for the DMK in Tamil Nadu, and so on. Now, there are two possibilities. Either the political trends have changed since the final set of pre-election forecasts, thanks perhaps to the cooling down of the Balakot effect. Or, the ground reports are using a different lens and end up with a different picture of the same reality. I suspect it is the latter. Ground reports and opinion poll-based analysis always offer very different snapshots of an election. Both these are valuable, as long as we know how to use these. Also read: 8 factors that could decide BJP’s electoral fortunes, even if it’s advantage NDA now Worms-eye view vs birds-eye view Permit me an autobiographical interlude. With this election, I complete three decades in professional election-watching. I made my first amateurish election forecast in 1989 at an obscure departmental seminar in Panjab University, Chandigarh. This was followed by the first exit poll I conducted for Chandigarh Lok Sabha constituency in 1991. My joining CSDS in 1993 was followed by a series of election-related surveys, more than I cared to count, till I formally announced my retirement from election forecasting in March 2012. Since then, with a few exceptions when I was tempted or compelled, I have kept away from the business of election forecasting. Looking back at the hundreds of elections over these three decades, I see a pattern. There are two ways of looking at and reporting about elections: ground reporting and survey-based analysis. Let us call them “worms-eye view” and “birds-eye view” respectively. Ground reporting is preferred by political reporters, fieldwork-based political scientists and most political workers and leaders. They use direct personal observation, extensive travel, in-depth knowledge of local politics and conversations with a few ordinary voters and political workers. They watch the body language of leaders, the attendance and the mood at political election rallies, hoardings, flags, and other visible marks of political loyalty. Based on all these indicators, they arrive at a qualitative assessment of the ‘hawa’. This was the only way to anticipate electoral outcomes in the first three decades of Indian elections. Ever since Prannoy Roy’s path-breaking forecasts in India Today for the 1980 and 1984 elections, the sample survey based election analysis has come to stay. Although the word ‘psephologist’ covers any and every student of elections, in India this label is used mainly for this newfangled science of forecasting election outcomes. Also read: 7 new finds on India’s elections: Why Prannoy Roy’s book is the definitive take on 2019 Typically, a psephologist carries out a large-scale sample survey, processes it to estimate vote shares for different political parties and then uses mathematical modeling to convert these vote estimates into seat forecasts. Instead of selective pick-and-choose method used by journalists, a psephologist uses statistical techniques for picking a representative sample. Instead of using indirect indicators to infer voting preferences, s/he directly asks the voters who they intend to or have voted for. Mixed picture vs clear wave In Europe and North America, the job of election forecasting has been handed over entirely to psephologists. There is a consensus that election forecasting requires a level of precision that only scientific surveys can bring. Journalists, political commentators and political leaders don’t compete with polls in the prediction game. They supplement sample surveys by doing in-depth stories, analysing political strategies and political outcomes,besides providing feel and colour to the election coverage. In India, we have not yet arrived at this division of labour. After a dream debut in the 1980s and a decent record in the next two decades, pollsters have smudged their reputation in the last decade or so. Too many polls, over-hyped claims, large proportion of dubious or fake polls, and absence of professional code regarding transparency have tarnished the image of psephology. As a result, political reporters and commentators are still in the business of election forecasting, although this is not their forte. Phillip Oldenberg, an American political scientist, wrote an insightful article ‘Pollsters, Pundits and a Mandate to Rule: Interpreting India’s 1984 Parliamentary Elections’ in The Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics on why all political commentators missed the 1984 Rajiv Gandhi wave. His explanation was simple: there is a triad of journalists, “knowledgeable persons” and political leaders who form a commonsense about election outcome. They keep speaking to one another and reinforcing each other’s reading. This commonsense local wisdom is then stitched together by political analysts and commentators and transmitted through the media. A pollster bypasses this triad and speaks directly to the voter and thus has a better chance of getting to the truth. This is particularly so in a “wave” election: “worms-eye view” tends to see a mixed picture where “birds-eye view” shows a clear wave. Election reports & exit polls Now cut to 2019. The news reports we are now reading are vital to understand the strategies of political parties, local issues, impact of candidates and shifts of various caste-community groups. But ultimately, these factors tend to cancel one another and do not affect the seats tally in a national polls in a big way. Also read: Pulwama-Balakot helps Modi in polls — issues of farmers, jobs, Rafale don’t exist anymore “Worm-eye view” is not the best way to anticipate what voters do on the polling day. It is particularly unhelpful if the elections turn out to be a “wave election”: electoral waves are invariably recognised in retrospect.<doc-sep>Elections 2019: Rajnath Singh shows his inked finger after casting his vote in Lucknow Highlights Rajnath Singh faces Poonam Sinha of the Samajwadi Party in Lucknow Lucknow is an important seat that has been with the BJP since 1991 Acharya Pramod Krishnam is the Congress candidate in the UP capital Home Minister Rajnath Singh turned up at a polling booth in Lucknow to cast his vote at 7:30 am, half-an-hour after voting began in the fifth of the seven-round national election. The Home Minister faces Poonam Sinha, wife of actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha, on this seat. After casting his vote, Rajnath Singh stood in front of cameras and showed his inked finger, smiling. "I can't predict anything," he said when reporters asked him what he felt about the election. "I leave the decision to the voters in Lucknow," he added. "The people have the full right to choose who they want... In any case, Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi will become PM again," said the Home Minister, who is seeking re-election from Lucknow. The BJP had bagged 12 of the 14 seats going to polls in this round in Uttar Pradesh in the 2014 national election. Amethi and Raebareli, from where UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi is contesting, were the only two seats the Congress won in the state in 2014. Poonam Sinha, an actor herself, had joined the Samajwadi Party last month. She is fighting on a seat where the party led by former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav has never won. "The mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) is no challenge for the BJP here. I don't want to comment on her (Poonam Sinha) as I believe elections are not about individuals but about issues," Rajnath Singh told ANI today. Lucknow is an important seat that has been with the BJP since 1991. The party's iconic leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee held it from 1991 to 2009. Rajnath Singh, who won the 2004 Lok Sabha polls from western Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad, took over the Lucknow seat in 2014. Mr Singh had defeated Congress's Rita Bahuguna Joshi, who is now in the BJP. The Congress has picked self-proclaimed spiritual guru Acharya Pramod Krishnam as its Lucknow candidate.<doc-sep>
The polls have spoken and they say it will be another NDA government at the Centre. Days before the world's biggest election gets underway, the poll of polls - an average of all major opinion polls - gives 277 seats to the NDA, which is 59 seats less than what it bagged in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections but comfortably past the halfway mark of 272. The NDA, of which the Modi-led BJP is the prime constituent, won 336 in 2014 while the saffron party managed 282 on its own. Significantly, the Congress-led UPA is set to increase its tally to 138, which will be largely at the expense of NDA. It is also more than double the UPA score in 2014, which was 59. Congress's individual standing was 44 in the last general elections. 'Others', including Trinamool, TRS and YSRCP, who are not part of the current NDA and UPA, hold a significant piece of the pie as the poll of polls gives 128 seats to them. The 2014 data suggests, despite the Modi wave, 'Others' had 148 seats in their kitty. Image: India Today TV This time around, the political biggies are trying hard to bring smaller parties into their fold. For example, the BJP has managed to bring JD(U) in Bihar and AIADMK in Tamil Nadu on board. Similarly, Congress stitched alliances with RLSP in Bihar and DMK in Tamil Nadu. Last week, the Nishad Party -- which was earlier part of SP-BSP alliance -- joined the NDA. And with this, the BJP's prospects appear to be stronger in at least six Lok Sabha seats in eastern Uttar Pradesh, where the community is numerically significant. Among all, Apna Dal is a classic example. The Krishna Patel faction forged an alliance with Congress to contest on two Parliamentary seats -- Basti and Pilibhit. On the other hand, Krishna Patel's daughter and Union minister Anupriya Patel, who leads the Apna Dal (Sonelal), tied up with the BJP and will be contesting on two seats in Uttar Pradesh. Image: India Today TV Republic Bharat-Jan Ki Baat is the only channel that has projected more than 300 seats for NDA (310, to be exact), 122 for UPA and 111 for Others. TV9 Bharat Varsh-C Voter forecast 261 for NDA, 143 for UPA, and 139 for Others. Times Now-VMR has predicted 283 seats for NDA, 135 for UPA and 125 for Others. News Nation has estimated 273 seats for NDA, 133 for UPA and 137 for Others. Both Republic TV-C Voter and Zee 24 Taas projected at 264 seats each for NDA whereas 141 and 165, respectively, for UPA. Republic TV-C Voter estimated 138 for others and Zee 24 Taas 114. India TV-CNX forecast 285 for NDA, 126 for UPA and 132 for others. The average of all the seven opinion polls for NDA stands at 277, for UPA 138 and for others 128. Image: India Today TV The poll of polls - based on the average of vote share projection of three polling agencies - gives 39 per cent to the NDA, 31 per cent to the UPA and 29 per cent to others. Interestingly, the NDA's vote share projection remains almost same as the previous Lok Sabha election while the UPA's vote share shows a significant rise. In 2014, the NDA's vote share was at 39 per cent, UPA was at 23 per cent and Others at 38 per cent. It is to be noted that both the coalitions have now more number of allies than the 2014 elections. Times Now-VMR projected 40 per cent vote share for NDA, 31 per cent for UPA, and 29 per cent for Others. Both ABP-C Voter and Republic TV-C Voter estimated 41 per cent each for NDA, 31 per cent each for UPA and 28 per cent each for Others. Voting for 543 Parliamentary seats starts from April 11 and the result will be declared on May 23.