India 2022 assembly elections Feb/Mar and Nov/Dec

[jaichind]

Not all the candidate lists are out for Manipur but most of them are.  I looked over them.  There has been a lot of candidate churn like Goa.  The BJP has a clear advantage in terms of candidate quality.  NPP and JD(U) both are going all out to make an impact in a big way.   JD(U) has attracted a bunch of defectors from all sorts of different parties that failed to get BJP tickets.  NPP is running in a bunch of non-tribal areas unlike in 2017.

In urban areas, it is mostly going to be BJP vs INC.  In Naga areas, it will be BJP vs INC vs NPF while in some non-Naga tribal areas it will be BJP vs INC vs NPP although NPP does have a couple of high-quality candidates in Naga areas as well.  JD(U) is mostly focused in urban areas and could spring a couple of surprises given the strong lineup they managed to recruit.  Of course, JD(U) is a de facto BJP B team where the couple JD(U) winners most likely will join BJP as soon as it is clear that the BJP will form the government.

Unlike Goa and Uttarakhand, there does not seem to be as much anti-incumbency wave in Manipur so BJP most likely should be able to ride its candidate quality advantage to victory and either win a majorty or be able to from a majority with JD(U) NPP and NPF backing post-election.

[jaichind]

In Punjab INC and AAP are spreading rumors that post-election SAD and BJP might re-form their alliance.  I guess both INC and AAP internal surveys are showing SAD surging in rural areas and both parties want to counter this by bringing up the BJP bogeyman due to the anti-BJP sentiment in rural Punjab over the now-defunct farm reform bills.

[jaichind]

In Punjab, Rahul Gandhi announces Charanjit Singh Channi as the INC CM candidate.   Navjot Singh Sidhu was present at the announcement and seems to have publically accepted this decision.  We will see what he does in the coming days.

This will most likely see some forward caste Sikh votes move away from INC but will further consolidate the Sikh Dalit vote for INC.  The total Dalit population in Punjab (Sikh and Hindu) most likely exceed 1/3 of the total population.  INC can now look forward to getting close to a super majority of these votes.  Some Hindu Dalit votes will go BSP but even that is reduced by this move.

[jaichind]

The wife vs wife battle from 2017 Amethi will continue in 2022 but inside the BJP.

Write-up from 2017

In the Rahul Gandhi's pocket borough of Amethi we are most likely to  see a battle of "Wife vs Wife."  
Everything centers around one Sanjay Singh who is from the Amethi royal family and is known as "Raja of Amethi."  



Sanjay Singh was in the INC in the 1970s and 1980s and was quite close to the Gandhi clan.  When his relative and former INC UP CM VP Singh bolted from INC and formed JD he defected to JD and was a member of the VP Singh JD cabinet.  He then defected to BJP and won from Amethi in the 1998 LS election.  He even ran against Sonia Gandhi on the BJP ticket in 1999 in a losing effort.    Later he defected back to the INC and became a key member of the INC team in UP.  He is currently an INC MP in the RS.

Sanjay Singh is married to one Garima Singh



But back in 1988 Sanjay Singh was implicated in the murder of his good friend and famous badminton player Syed Modi.  It seems that Sanjay Singh was having an affair with Syed Modi's wife Amita Kulkarni and both of them plotted to murder Syed Modi.  

Picture of Sanjay Singh with Amita Kulkarni.


In the end Sanjay Singh and Amita Kulkarni were acquitted of murder charges after years of investigations and trials.  

Sanjay Singh then proceeded divorce his current wife Garima Singh and married Amita Kulkarni.   Garima Singh claims that the divorce was not final and claims that Sanjay Singh's marriage to Amita Kulkarni is null and void.  Sanjay Singh and then tried to get the courts to throw Garima Singh and their children out of the palace he lives in.



And is an ongoing court case.  

Anyway.  It seems that Garima Singh has joined BJP who will field her in the Amethi seats.  Amita Kulkarni as Sanjay Singh's de facto wife won in Amethi in 2002 running for BJP and won in 2007 running for INC.  She ran as INC candidate in 2012 and lost to SP.   SP-INC alliance will most likely grant Amethi to INC who will most likely field Amita Kulkarni.  So the election will be "Wife vs Wife."

Wife #1 BJP Garima Singh defeated Wife #2 INC Amita Kulkarni in 2017.  In 2019 Sanjay Singh and wife #2 Amita Kulkarni rejoined BJP.  Wife #2 Amita Kulkarni is looking for be nominated by the BJP for the  Amethi seat while Wife #1 Garima Singh is looking to be re-nominated  So now it is a rerun of 2017 wife vs wife battle but within the BJP nomination process.

In the wife vs wife BJP primary for the Amethi, the winner is the husband.  BJP decides to go with Sanjay Singh as the BJP candidate over both his wives as a way to break the deadlock.  Reasonable compromise.

[jaichind]

Anti-BJP Democracy Times final Goa poll

INC-GFP    18
BJP           15
MGP-AITC   3
AAP            1
Others        3

Others at 3 mean Utpal Parrikar, son of former BJP CM that passed away, and running as a BJP rebel with MGP-AITC and SHS support most likely won.

[jaichind]

Anti-BJP Democracy Times final poll on Manipur

BJP       25
INC       19
NPP        8
NPF        4
Other     4 (I have to assume at least 2 of the 4 are JD(U)

Clear post-election BJP goverment

[jaichind]

Anti-BJP Democracy Times final poll on Uttarakhand

INC          37
BJP          31
APP           0
Others       2 (almost certain to be INC and BJP rebels)

[jaichind]

Anti-BJP Democracy Times final poll on Punjab

INC                     44
AAP                     41
SAD-BSP             26
BJP-PLC-SAD(S)     3
Others                   3 (2 of the 3 most be the Bains brothers' LIP)

[jaichind]

Karnataka battle of religious garbs continues

First, in response to Muslim girls protesting the banning of  Hijab in classrooms at a private college by wearing  Hijabs. 

We have Hindu students across Karnataka counter-protests wearing saffron scarfs in school
https://twitter.com/TimesNow/status/1490636344183648258


Which merely triggered counter-counter-protest by Dalits students wearing blue scarfs in school
https://twitter.com/Sankul333/status/1490583720234913792

Saffron is the color of Hinduism and blue is the color of Dalit empowerment.

[jaichind]

Anti-BJP Democracy Times final UP poll

BJP+         224
SP+          162
BSP            11
INC              4
Others          2

[jaichind]

The Democracy Times polls are roughly where I think the election is at this moment.  I do think they are underestimating BJP in Manipur and AAP in Punjab.

[jaichind]

In the wife vs wife BJP primary for the Amethi, the winner is the husband.  BJP decides to go with Sanjay Singh as the BJP candidate over both his wives as a way to break the deadlock.  Reasonable compromise.

BTW, the last time Sanjay Singh ran for this assembly seat was in 1985 as the INC candidate.  To this date, his victory still holds the record for most lopsided contested election in Indian assembly election history

Amethi 1985 assembly election
INC  (Sanjay Singh)               98.3%
BJP                                        1.3%

The history of the Raja of Amethi family and INC/Gandhi family is an interesting one.  The old Raja of Amethi was pro-BJS in the 1960s mostly because  Indira Gandhi made a move to take away all promised pensions for the various ex-royals in the late 1960s.  In 1977 in order to try to make his backward Amethi a VIP constituency and get more government funding the old Raja of Amethi switched to INC and lobbied to get Indira Gandhi's son political heir Sanjay Gandhi to contest in Amethi in the 1977 LS elections.  Sanjay Gandhi picked Amethi to run in 1977 and lost in the 1977 epic Janata landslide.  But Sanjay Gandhi came back on won in 1980 before his untimely death in a plane accident.  But during this time the scion of the House of Amethi Raja Sanjay Singh cemented his relationship with the Gandhi family and INC.  He ran in the 1980 UP election in the Amethi assembly and won as INC candidate.

Indira Gandhi called in his non-political son Rajiv Gandhi to come into politics and run in the by-election for the Amethi LS seat.  Sanjay Gandhi's widow Maneka Gandhi objected to his as she saw herself as Sanjay Gandhi's political heir and not Rajiv Gandhi.  Rajiv Gandhi won that by-election.  In 1988 Sanjay Singh had a falling out with Rajiv Gandhi and joined the new JD.  Later in the 1990s he joined the BJP and won the Amethi LS seat in 1998 as the BJP candidate.  In 1999 he ran against Sonia Gandhi who was looking to reclaim her husband's old seat and lost badly.  In 2003 he rejoined the INC only to rejoin BJP in 2019 after the BJP LS landslide victory in UP.

[jaichind]

With voting set to start on Feb 10th, all the pollsters will be pushing out their final polls.

[jaichind]

Final Jan Ki Batt UP poll

BJP+ vote share set to rise to 42.5% beating back an anti-BJP consolidation behind SP+.  BSP and INC getting destroyed along the way.




Key issues
Caste & Religion : 35%
Law & Order : 25%
Unemployment : 11%
Welfare measures : 16%
Others : 13%.

Very BJP friendly set of key issues



Jat vote split 60/40 between SP+ and BJP+ which means BJP clawed back a bunch of Jat votes it lost due to farm protests.

[jaichind]

Final Jan Ki Batt Punjab poll

INC vote share holds up due to Dalit consolidation but anti-INC vote consolidates around AAP to defeat INC.  No sign of the SAD surge other polls is seeing.  I think BJP+ at 7% is an underestimate.

[jaichind]

Final Jan Ki Batt Uttarakhand poll

It seems they have AAP cutting into the anti-BJP vote to give the BJP a narrow victory

[jaichind]

Final ABP CVoter UP poll

Seat projection.  Somewhat narrow BJP win.  BSP and INC squeezed but not totally crushed.


Vote share by region


Seats by Region

(Jat and Yadav heavy, BJP beating back the farm protest Jat shift to SP+)
Seats in Western UP region (Total Seats-136):
BJP+71-75
SP+ 53-57
BSP 4-6
Congress- 1-3
Others-0-2

(INC used to have some strength here but it seems most of it is gone)
Seat Projection in Awadh region (Total Seats-118):
BJP+ 71-75
SP+ 41-45
BSP 1-3
Congress 0-1
Others 0-1

(Old BJP stronghold - very backward area)
Seat Projection in Bundelkhand region (Total Seats-19):
BJP+ 13-17
SP+ 2-6
BSP 0-1
Congress- 0-1
Others-0-1


(Land of the non-Yadav OBC)
Seats in Purvanchal region (Total Seats-130)
BJP+ 66-70
SP+ 48-52
BSP 5- 7
Congress- 1-3
Others-3-5

[jaichind]

Final ABP CVoter Manipur poll

           Seats   Vote Share
BJP        23         34%
INC       19          28%
NPF        8          10%       
Others   10         28%

BJP not doing as well as I would expect.  It seems a lot of votes are going to NPP and JD(U) leading to a very splintered result.

[jaichind]

Final ABP CVoter Goa poll

BJP's vote share falling while INC's vote share rising to lead to a totally fractured mandate.  The post-election battles and horse-trading will become the real election.

I refuse to believe AAP can win 24% of the vote. And if you accept that then this poll is very negative for BJP as this overestimation of AAP most likely means INC is underestimated.

[jaichind]

Final ABP CVoter Punjab poll

INC's vote share crashes to a disastrous 30% and the anti-INC vote mostly consolidated around AAP giving the AAP a small majority.

Vote share by region


Seat projection

[jaichind]

Final ABP CVoter Uttarakhand poll

Tiny BJP edge as both BJP and INC are consolidating their vote.   AAP at 13% is a very bad sign for BJP as on election a good chunk of them will tactically vote INC  This poll is not good news for BJP.  I am skeptical about AAP winning more than 1 seat and more likely than not will get zero seats.

[jaichind]

Final LokPoll polls

Uttarakhand
INC        36
BJP        30
Others     4

Same as their previous polls.  Everyone seems to agree that Uttarakhand will be close which should be bad news for BJP


Punjab
INC         59
SAD+      27
AAP         24
BJP+         2
Others       5 (Other than the 2 LIP winners I am not sure there are 3 viable rebels in the running)

In 2017 AAP totally underperformed pre-election polls.   This poll seems to believe the same thing will take place and that anti-incumbency will be dissipated by Dalit consolidation behind INC and the anti-INC vote evenly split between SAD-BSP and AAP.


Manipur
BJP        25
INC        22
NPP         5
NPF         4
Others     4

I suspect BJP will do better than this given how much of the INC talent has gone elsewhere (BJP and JD(U) and NPP)


Goa
INC-GFP      18
BJP             14
MGP-AITC     3
AAP              1
Others          4

This feels about right and matches my view that AAP will completely underperform what many polls claim.


UP
BJP+          191
SP+           178
BSP             14
INC             13
Others           7

This poll seems to have BSP and INC, especially INC, retaining some of their votes and helping to keep BJP below majority.

[jaichind]

https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2022/feb/06/sukhjinder-raj-singh-vs-jagwinderpal-singh-siblings-pitted-against-each-other-in-punjabs-majitha-s-2416050.html

"Sukhjinder Raj Singh vs Jagwinderpal Singh: Siblings pitted against each other in Punjab's Majitha seat"

Brother vs Brother in Punjab's Majitha.  INC ran Sukhjinder Raj Singh here in 2017 who lost to a key SAD leader Bikram Singh Majithia.   Sukhjinder Raj Singh then defected to AAP to run in 2022.     Bikram Singh Majithia decided to run against INC Punjab Prez Navjot Singh Sidhu in Amritsar East leaving his wife to run here.  INC nominated Jagwinder Pal Singh who is Sukhjinder Raj Singh's brother.  So the battle will be brother vs brother vs the wife of the 2017 winner.

[jaichind]

A look at the Punjab candidate list shows some churn mostly in favor of INC but that is expected as the INC is the ruling party

Out of 2017 77 INC winners
64 win run again for INC
2 will run for BJP
2 were not nominated and will run as a rebel
1 was not nominated and his wife will run as a rebel
1 retired and his son will run for INC
1 will run as PLC (former INC CM Amarinder Singh)

Out of 2017 20 AAP winners
10 will run again for AAP
4 joined INC but was not nominated
3 joined INC and will run for INC
2 was not nominated and rebelled but will not run

Out of the 2017 15 SAD winner
12 will run again for SAD
2 will have relatives run for SAD
1 will run for SAD(S)

Out of the 2017 3 BJP winners
2 will run again for BJP
1 became an MP in 2019


Out of the 2017 29 INC second place finishers
12 will run again for INC
3 will run for AAP
2 were not nominated and will run as independents
1 will have son run for INC
1 will run for PLC
1 joined AAP but was not nominated
1 retired but entire family went over to back SAD

Out of the 2017 26 AAP second place finishers
12 will run again for AAP
1 joined SAD but was not nominated
2 were not nominated and rebelled but will not run

Out of the 2017 44 SAD second place finishers
26 will run for SAD
3 will run for BJP
1 joined INC but was not nominated
1 will run for SAD(M)

Out of the 2017 18 BJP second place finishers
10 will run for BJP
1 will not run but nephew will run for BJP
1 will run for SAD
1 joined SAD but was not nominated
1 was not nominated and rebelled but will not run


Main takeaways
a) INC mainly targeted AAP winners to recruit from but only nominated some of them.  INC was not interested in recruiting 2017 second place AAP finishers
b) BJP SAD(S) and PLC did recruit a few quality candidates from other parties and could outperform but they are just too weak in most seats
c) SAD seems to be re-nominating most of its 2017 candidates. SAD seems to believe that it lost in 2017 due to double incumbency and the BJP brand dragging them down.  They have neither this time around and they feel that in 2017 they had a good set of quality candidates they want to run again
d) INC clearly ahead of AAP in the defection game which is expected given the fact that INC is the ruling party.  If INC was behind in the defection game as the ruling party that would point to a landslide defeat for INC.  Based on candidate quality analysis it is not clear INC will win but most likely INC will not be defeated in a landslide.
e) As the main opposition party the AAP candidate quality is pretty poor.   If AAP is to win it will have to be based on its CM face Bhagwant Mann and/or AAP brand
f) As the second opposition party the SAD candidate quality is very strong.  If AAP does underperform I can see SAD doing very well based on its strong candidate quality.

[jaichind]

In the wife vs wife BJP primary for the Amethi, the winner is the husband.  BJP decides to go with Sanjay Singh as the BJP candidate over both his wives as a way to break the deadlock.  Reasonable compromise.

Another fun fact about the Amethi seat, in 2017 the SP ran 2012 SP winner Gaytri Prasad even though by the 2017 election he was accused of rape and was fugitive from the law on charges of rape.  In the end wife #1, Garima Singh of the BJP won.  Afterward, Gaytri Prasad was arrested and convicted of rape and is now serving a life impediment term.  But SP seems to want to double down on Gaytri Prasad by nominating Gaytri Prasad's wife as the SP candidate.  The SP must see something special in Gaytri Prasad's ability to get votes.  They are sticking with him even after he is convinced and sentenced to life for rape. So both BJP and SP put the spouse of their 2017 candidates to run this time in this seat.