You Read It Here First: Five Truths About This Election

Good article Chandra. Nice analysis of data.

Regards,

great piece!

credit, where credit is due!

the figures really put things in perspective

Chandra:
Let me congratulate you first on your prediction that UPA will win.

Thanks for this analysis.

Its not a clear sweep for UPA as most people think. Don't write off BJP or don't write off regional parties.

As you rightly pointed out, Chiranjeevi was responsible for Congress win in AP. Also, in Telangana more than one contended promised new statehood and that vote got diluted making Congress a winner there.

Chandra

Congress wiped out BJP in Rajesthan and Delhi. Both states were ruled by congress and they went one on one in these states. What is the analysis behind results in these 2 states?

Nice analysis.

Few questions regarding AP:
Per my understanding, Chiranjeevi siphoned off some percentage of Kapu(a caste which makes up for almost 25% of the population) votes from Congress.

If I am right, Kapus generally vote against TDP(a party dominated by their rivals, the Kammas).

Congress(Dominated by Brahmins, Reddys and Kapus. Yes?) as a result used to pick up those deflected votes.

Chiranjeevi, who is a Kapu, wrested away many of those Kapu votes from Congress(1).

So shouldn't Congress really have decimated TDP if Chiranjeevi were not in the fray?

And what exactly was so good about YSR's governance? Other than Naxalite problem, I don't see any other significant achievement in YSR regime.

Chandra

The 9.7% decimation of BJP vote share - did it happen across the nation? Did it happen in only certain states, and if so, which states contributed to it?

Congress seems to have done above expectations across the board - in BJP rules states, left rules states, congress-ruled states, BSP/SP bastian - only states it has not duplicate its feat seems to be Orissa, Bihar, Kartnataka, and Gujarat.

It leads me to believe that BJP is proving not to be a viable political force in a true sense that can sustain power or its momentum. It is merely a stop-gap corrective force, relevant only when political forces(congress, left etc) ebb or falter. If BJP wants to have a political future, it has to re-invent as a genuine political force.

Thank you Sujai and CS for your comments, I appreciate it

Kerty,

BJP has not mastered caste based politics as well as Congress and Third Front(except communists) have done so.

That would be against BJP's raison d'etre, ie, unification and consolidation of the Hindu vote bank.

In rural areas where Hindus are vast majority, Hindu consolidation is not an issue.

Rather people circle their wagons based on different identities like caste and also on some local loyalties(to the landlord/Thakur/Raja).

BJP is still a baccha in these aspects.

Hats Off to you Chandra! Really wonderful and insightful analysis. Puts everything in perspective.

Also in TN, Vijayakanth was the main factor for UPA leading ahead of AIADMK, as he split the anti-DMK votes.

"A closer look at the vote shares in some major states reveals even more startling trends. In Uttar Pradesh, for example, the Congress has hiked its vote share from a mere 12% last time to 18.3% now. In the process, it has overtaken the BJP in the state, which has slid from 22.2% to 17.5%. Again, while the SP has retained its numero uno status in terms of seats, it has actually lost 3.4% in vote share, while the BSP has gained 2.7%, with the result that it now has 27.4% to the SP's 23.3% - a sizeable lead in a state as fragmented as UP."


Read full analysis
http://www.keralanext.com/news/2009/05/18/article114.asp

Kerty 4

Two points

a. The Rajasthan Govt was voted in fairly recently, so anti-incumbency applies to the Vasundha Raje Scindia Govt and not Gehlot

b. Gujarat and Delhi are exceptions to the Anti-incumbency wave. Better Governance and poor opposition being the reasons

KS 5

I am not sure that the Kapus voted Chiranjeevi in large numbers. Donot forget that both Chiranjeevi and Allu Arvind lost the seats that they contested in Coastal Andhra. As of now we will go by what we see which is that the TDP saw a big dent in vote share and since the PRP saw an equal jump in vote share, they are correlated. It is highly unlikely that there has been a double shift in voting, never happens in elections. Anyway, one needs to wait for sometime to conlude for sure.

As far as performance goes, Rajasekhar Reddy is seen quite differently by various citizens in AP. One group sees his housing and Insurance program as a major success and the other sees it as a vehicle for corruption. Either way the problem in AP is that nether Babu or Reddy are exactly clean and no wonder that megastar picked up nearly 16% of the vote. Ironically, the media in AP has labelled Chiranjeevi's performance as a failure. I think it was a mega success.,...

Kerty 6

The BJP did lose vote share in most states. A couple of exceptions probably include Karnataka and Himachal. I posted an article on the forecast to detail why they were likely to lose, that holds true

I dont think any party is going anywhere. In my analysis, a 2% shift means nothing. In fact, it is likely that the Congress will be wiped out in the next election.

Why?

Until the late 90s, anti-congressism was the major uniting factor amongst opposition parties. Most of the times they came together to throw the Congress out. However, eary this century as many of these parties consolidated their vote, muslims became a big share of their vote making a pro-BJP stance untenable. In 2004, this realignment was complete with most of these parties supporting the Congress and many staying away from the BJP. With the congress once again becoming the centre of attention, the BJP will have to (and surely will) find a way to re-unite most of their opponents. Both Laloo and Mulayam will surely know that a leak this time could turn into a deluge for the congress in Elections 2014. The BJP also knows that unless thay modernise and re-state their vision for India, none of these other parties are likey to ally with it.

The news reports say that Rahul Gandhi was a big pull for Congress. Do these statistics confound that statement or will he be able to unite the country behind him? Like most South Asian countries there is the dynastic factor. I think it is a curse but politically it seems to work.

MBI - 15

If you read my original forecast, I did not refer at all to the Rahul Gandhi factor and yet came quite close to the actual tally. However, I missed a very important trend - The shift in Muslim/Upper caste vote in UP and muslim vote in many other states in favor of the congress. While this may have come because of numerous factors, a secular Rahul Gandhi may have helped. Of course, constantly reminding muslims that sacchar committee recommendations will be implemented may have also helped.

As far dynasty is concerned, we are good at it in both Politics and Bollywood, thankfully not so in Cricket. It is a shameful thing and more so because it appears that nearly a third of our population have found justification for it.

Give it up Chandra, your beloved right wing ,non Hindu hatin , women beating BJP/RSS/BAjrang Dal/VHP LOST!!!!

India is not a secular nation because Indian Muslims want it to be secular. India is secular nation because Indian Hindus want it to be secular nation - M.J Akbar in his article.

It's true. Better BJP concentrate on the development rather than religion. First of all hindu religion is not split into casts. every cast is equal to religion in India. Some parties know this very well, that's why they are not bothering about hindutva. One blogger claimed that..."muslims are the largest community in india". That's true. The largest community took the side of congress, that's why they won.

correction:

hindu community split into casts.

Srikanth

Good observation.

Congress seems to have lost whenever Moslem votes have deserted Congress in favor of other parties. This election, moslem vote seems to have deserted left and regional parties and returned back to congress. When all is said and done, that is all there is to election outcome 2009 - throw in few spoilers here and there. There is no way BJP can win if moslem vote were to get united behind a single party. Same would be true if Hindu vote were to get united behind a single party but chance of Hindus getting united are next to none.

What made moslem vote return to congress? It could be threat of BJP returning to power, hopelessness of left and third-front, varun-modi fear factor, decimation of jehadi forces in and around Pakistan, fear of congress joining war on terrorism and hence need to neutralize it from within congress, lure of sachar goodies etc.

Chandra,
Congrats on your accurate predictions, which I had criticised earlier.

One of the reasons why BJP could not do well is related to do with the way it manages it organisation.

BJP is a ideologically stiff organisation and it can not shift across issues quickly. Its mentors in RSS are even stiffer. So, BJP could not grow across India even though it ruled country for 5 years.

So, BJP failed to create issues in this election. They did not focus on issues like bad governance or corruption. They never researched on them. They did not go around the country talking about these issues. How can they, when most of their leaders, who call shots are old fellows?

People remembered BJP for Hindutva and other extreme behaviour than whatever good work they had done during 1999 to 2004.

There can be other reasons as well. Corporate India may have helped Congress win as it felt threatened at a unstable govt. Money matters a lot in elections. One vote can cost about Rs.500 and 50,000 votes can cost just 2.5 crore rupees.

It is a fact that money gets distributed in elections by all parties.

In a country where there are 800 million people people earning less than 2 USD per day, money can influence and a hundred seats can be influenced with 250 crores of money.

Corporate India also influences how media behaves. Media worked hard to showcase Congress. For example, it showed special interviews of family of Manmohan Singh right in the middle of elections even though it had 5 years to conduct these interviews.


If Congress is really for good governance, then it will implement judicial reforms and police reforms. When the country can have 25,000km of good quality highways built, then it is capable of revamping and transforming the completely dysfunctional judiciary.