The grand numbers of 2009

I believe in numbers and I strongly believe they are the best benchmarks for political predictions unless a big national phenomenon breaks out. I am frankly sick and tired of reading articles by columnists who have no clue of the ground reality and numbers, people like arun nehru who believe in writing nonsense in flamboyant english, someone who goes to the extent of saying BSP will win 50 lok sabha seats in 2009. Anyway what they write is their prerogative, I just wish better sense prevailed among the editors who publish such articles. I dont want to quote names or pull out numbers of all the columnists who ramble on a topic to make a few bucks. Political analysis can be biased to some extent, but it should not just lead to a drivel with no numbers to support your claims. Here I present a summary of my effort over the last 6 months. Some publications (I mean well screened political journals, not media publications) did help me arrive at some conclusions. But for all practical purposes it was www.eci.gov.in that helped me all the way and economic and political weekly to an extent. Whats written or rambled here is a very unorganized brief summary of my findings and predictions for the 2009 General elections.

you might want to view this spreadsheet below to before you have a look at the summary

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pkMyOUr8Pm31FRd6C_TWwcw

What i refer to as sure seats are seats I expect the party to win for sure based on past electoral trends and vote shares in particular constituencies. The Added seats column shows the number of seats they are likely to win above the sure seats. One can
quite easily opine with just a primitive look at this table and summary that I am a right wing BJP supporter and I have no qualms accepting that nor am I trying to sell the right wing ideology. All I am doing here is just putting forth some numbers which prove my predictions. Please also note that these are Lok Sabha predictions and some Indian states do vote very differently for the Lok Sabha and the State assembly elections. So this analysis presented here is no basis for assembly elections.

Bihar (40) ----------JD, BJP combo with nitish at the helm will get the BJP-JD combo in bihar at least 30 of the 40 lok sabha seats

Gujarat (26) --------Narendra Modi will scare the hell out of congress, they might even lose the deposit in the Lok Sabha polls in gujarat.

Orissa (21) --------Classy administration by BJD-BJP combo led by Naveen Patnaik.

Uttarakhand (5) ---Who can compare himself with the dedication and sincerity of this army general B.C Khanduri


The above four states dont need any analysis. The BJP without its allies will win 14+22+8+4=48 seats just in these 4 states. But I have done a preliminary analysis albeit without vote shares anyway for the heck of it and they prove my numbers.

With the allies the BJP led NDA is likely to win at least 30+22+19+4=75 seats just in these 4 states.
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The state of Rajasthan has good administration with Vasundhara Raje at the helm but we shall still do an analysis on the 25 Lok Sabha seats there.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pkMyOUr8Pm31KJg1AcEl_VQ

Upon Analysis a safe prediction would be that BJP wins 16 seats and the congress 3 for sure. Of the remaining 6 a very reasonable prediction would be 3 to each party. This gives BJP 3 and the Congress 3 seats. Hence the BJP wins a total of 19 seats in Rajasthan.

With this the NDA gets 94 seats on the whole for sure. The seat total for now in these 5 states is 40+26+21+5+25=117

Lets head a bit further north and look at Punjab, Himachal and Delhi next. The 3 combined account fot 24 lok sabha seats together.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pkMyOUr8Pm32uGfSgD-FjFQ

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pkMyOUr8Pm33CyfpM7WWqZw

The SAD-BJP alliance is quite solid in punjab and will win 9 of the 13 seats in punjab. Going by the recent landslide win in himachal for the BJP they are likely to win 3 of the 4 seats in Himachal. The Delhi municipal elections have shown that Delhi is ready to finally throw the corrupt congress out of Indraprastha. This gives them all 7 seats.

These 3 states add 19 seats for the NDA giving them 113 seats of the 141 so far.

Next let us look at Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh which have 40 seats on the whole. For sure the BJP will win 29 of the 40 seats there. In all probability it will win 20+ in MP and 9 in Chhattisgarh.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pkMyOUr8Pm33S3SqV5ukJWQ

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pkMyOUr8Pm320rRd7GCRFbw

With this the BJP led NDA has 142 of the 181 seats so far as a minimum.

Lets head west of the vindhyas into Maha-Rashtra now. Of the 48 lok sabha seats the BJP-Shiv Sena combo will get a 27 seat minimum. The congress appeasement and fake farmer policies are well open to the public here. So 27 is the least they can get now. Rebels won’t help them much, narayan rane is a good example.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pkMyOUr8Pm31d19iGPUqpCA

So where does this put us now: BJP led NDA have 169 of the 229 seats.

Lets now head to karnataka. I would assume that BJP can improve its tally from 18 but to be conservative, I am only sure about 12 seats of the 28 for the BJP there.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pkMyOUr8Pm32Cx9EwcLXHCA

This takes the NDA to 181 of 257 seats. Still need 91 seats to reach that magic figure of 272.

Lets now grab some seats for BJP from the small tiny seats.

In arunachal pradesh I expect them draw a blank this time. Assam they will get only 3 seats if they dont have a seat sharing agreement with AGP. If the top brass of BJP pull AGP into NDA then they stand a good chance of getting 9 of the 14 seats. In goa BJP will get both the seats and they are also likely to get 5 of the 10 seats in Haryana. INLD leaders have shown that they want to keep options open and hence attended the BJP meeting all along and I am sure they will ditch the 3rd front. INLD will contribute 5 seats to the NDA. In Jammu and Kashmir, the BJP will win 2 seats of the 6 for sure.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pkMyOUr8Pm33-vdOavfDSfA

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pkMyOUr8Pm31HsUXlBOKwFQ

Thus the picture so far assuming that AGP is not a part of the NDA is 0+3+2+10+2= 17 of 2+14+2+10+6=34. This puts the NDA at 198 of 291 seats.

The states yet to cover are Andhra, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Kerala and some NE States and Islands. All these put together account for 42+14+39+80+42+20+15=252 seats. The NDA still needs 74 seats for an absolute majority. The parody is that so far they have 198 of the 291 seats which is more than 2/3rds representing a parliamentary majority, but these 74 seats of the 252 will make even the 272 of 543 (50% simple majority) an uphill task. In any event 74 of 252 seats is an asking rate of 29%.

Lets see how they can chart out these 74 seats. Mind you that we left some open space for the BJP led NDA in Bihar, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka. In Bihar they can ideally get a maximum of 33, 32 in Maharashtra, 24 in Madhya Pradesh and 18 in Karnataka. So this leaves us with some room for 3+5+4+6= 18 seats. But I would like to leave this open because tossing up these 18 seats to the NDA would be sheer optimism and under estimation of the UPA. If they get it it’s a bonus. The BJP strategy should be to get these 74 seats from the remaining 252 parliamentary constituencies we have not analyzed so far.

From experience and prevailing political scenes in certain areas we can definitely rule out BJP in states like Kerala and West Bengal where they might just salvage one odd seat in Bengal and for sure draw blank in Kerala. So this leaves them with 73 seats needed of 190 seats. It looks like the asking rate is climbing up. The RSS and VHP are trying hard to break the ice in these two communist states and get at least 2-3 more seats that can at least give them a standing ground. Again if a miracle like that happens it is only a bonus and neither we nor the NDA should bank on such miracles for electoral success. Of the NE States, Islands and UT's the NDA can get like 2 of the 15 seats. This gets us to 71 needed from 175 seats. The BJP leadership in Andhra is poor and it is a state that neither had a Hindutva wave like Uttar Pradesh or Gujarat nor a silent saffronization like Karnataka or Madhya Pradesh. I would give BJP just 3 seats of the 42 on just anti-incumbency terms. This gets us to 68 from 133 seats. Now the asking rate is 51%!!!!!!!!!!!

The NDA needs 68 seats from Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. Thats a big ask I must say. A big one. Lets analyze Tamil Nadu first where the BJP has an alliance. The best that BJP and ADMK together can salvage with the ongoing DMK-CPI-INC-Vijaykanth alliance is 10 seats. Anything above that can only be attributed to the ever vacillating mood of a Tamil voter.

Now we get to 58 needed from 94 seats at an asking rate of 62%. If this was 1998 I would say "Ha, thats a piece of cake BJP will get that just in UP.". But I am sorry just in 9 years so much has happened in UP with the regional parties making inroads even in the Lok Sabha elections. The dwindling presence of Sangh Workers has only put BJP in the 3rd position here. Realistically they have hit rock bottom in UP. They can’t go any further down. Some aggressive campaigning by BJP can help them, especially with Advani, Rajnath and Modi. But unless something extraordinary turns up, they will be stuck at 15 seats.

Now they need 43 more and they have only Jharkhand left. They can get 10 there and would still need 33.

??????????????????????

There is always a way out of situations like these. One has to first look at seats where you have never won so far and pick out those constituencies where you have been a runner up. The other is to form good alliances, An alliance with AGP go as far as getting them 6 lok sabha seats. 6 seats in this crunch situation is a big jackpot. Next a hidden alliance with NCP will come very handy and if it materializes they can literally sweep Maharashtra putting the congress in dark. Of course they should concentrate on retaining whatever they have as well. If BJP really deserves it I just wish Bhagwan Shri Ram helps them wrest Uttar Pradesh again.

So a brief summary

The NDA will for sure wrest 198 of the 291 seats in the 1st segment and have a potential chance of finally winning somewhere between 207-216 of the 291.

Of the remaining 252 seats the NDA is going to have a hard time. 3 states of Bengal, Kerala and Andhra give BJP just 4 seats in all of the 104 seats they have.

Let us be more realistic in the summary and discount BJP from any seats in the UT's and NE and Islands.

We are left with 133 seats in UP, TN and Jharkhand and NDA needs 272-207-4=61 seats here. An asking rate of 50%.

If the top brass plays the right cards and get an understnding with Arjun Munda and Babulal Marandi then they can salvage a realistic 9 of the 14 seats this
Jharkhand.

This leaves us with the NDA needing 52 seats in TN and UP. As I said the alliance in Assam can get them an extra 6 seats, Jayalalitha can get them 10 seats or more. They would still need 36 seats in UP. 10 years back that was a joke for the BJP, now 36 seats in UP is a dauting task. Their expert committee may do any amount of planning, but they BJP leaders, the Sangh parivar need to be getting their hands dirty and working their way through the path of the Ganges right from Noida to Varanasi. If they can do that I am sure the UP voters will give BJP one more chance.

Advani needs to plan a huge yatra in UP to revive its sagging fortunes in this state which just 9 years back was their bastion.

Another state which BJP should try is Andhra, especially the areas bordering Karnataka where the Sangh has a good presence.

Segment 1----------------------------------Strong/Medium BJP States for Lok Sabha

Himachal
Punjab
Haryana
Uttaranchal
Rajasthan
Madhya Pradesh
Chhattisgarh
Karnataka
Gujarat
Bihar
Goa
Assam (Medium)
Orissa
Delhi
Maharashtra


Segment 2----------------------------------Weak BJP states

Andhra
Tamil Nadu
Uttar Pradesh
West Bengal
Kerala
NE States and Islands.

Segment 3------------------------------They have organization but predictions are tough

Jharkhand
Jammu
Arunachal

So my final take is that the BJP will be the single largest party, but it needs some more effort in its bastion UP to get to power with solid NDA allies, else it will form the government again but with loose partners and TDP external support.