India 2022 assembly elections Feb/Mar and Nov/Dec

[jaichind]

Multiple media outlets report that AAP CM face Bhagwant Mann went to the wrong voting booth to vote. Good thing for AAP this is becoming news after the voting is over.

[jaichind]

Punjab's final turnout at 72% which is the lowest since 2002 and a significant drop from 77% in 2017.  Pro-INC sources continue to claim that Dalit turnout is up which I guess is true would be a positive INC signal although that would be good news for BJP as well given DSS support of BJP.  Still, the lower turnout almost certainly means a lot of 2017 INC voters did not turn out.  On the other side lower turnout does not seem to imply some sort of pro-AAP wave election.  The main winner of lower turnout seems to be SAD.  In theory, it helps BJP but it seems the turnout decline is greater in urban areas which would be bad for BJP.   I think INC is out but the chances of a hung assembly have gone up.

[jaichind]

[jaichind]

TN Local body poll results coming out.  The ruling party usually does well in these types of elections and it is not a surprise that DMK and allies are sweeping the elections winning more than a majority of seats despite a significant number of independent (which I suspect most are amenable to working with DMK) winners.

The bigger surprise is how well both INC and BJP are doing running independently as most significant parties run independently in these races.  In the  Town Panchayat races it is so far (going by wins and leads in the 7604 seats up for grabs)

DMK: 4332
ADMK: 1197
INC: 346
BJP: 217
PMK: 94
MDMK: 21
VCK: 36
DMDK: 16
Others: 1227

The Municipal Council and Municipal Corporation results so far have similar trends with INC and then BJP being the 3rd and 4th behind a DMK landslide and AIADMK.

INC and BJP doing better than the various regional forces which do have strength in various areas.  AIADMK splinter AMMK is doing very poorly since it is not even really trying.  Sasikala seems to be focused on regaining control of AIADMK versus trying to hurt it from the outside.

[jaichind]

Phase 4 of UP (59 seats) voting in progress. Results from this phase from last few elections.

2019 BJP 51 SP 1 BSP 2 INC 5
2017 BJP 51 SP 4 BSP 2 INC 2
2014 BJP 44 SP 2 BSP 8 INC 5
2012 BJP 4 SP 39 BSP 12 INC 3 OTHERS 1

[jaichind]

Tamil Nadu ULB Elections: Cumulative seat count across Panchayat, Municipal Council and Municipal Corporation seats

Total Seats- 12818

DMK         7700
AIADMK    2008
INC            592
BJP            308
CPI(M)       166
PMK           126
AMMK         102
VCK             93
MDMK          89
CPI              58
IUML            41
DMDK          35
Others     1500

DMDK which was becoming a very powerful third force in 2004-2006 has now almost ceased to exist.  AMMK which was becoming a relevant force in 2017-2019 also now has dropped to irrelevance.   As noted before INC and BJP clearly outperformed while DMK swept the polls as expected.

[jaichind]

The poor performance of AIADMK in the most recent TN local elections has provoked more conflict within AIADMK on the possible return of former AIADMK leader Sasikala to the party.  The EPS faction clearly is opposed to this but the OPS faction which is based on the Thevar heavy South clearly is pushing for  Sasikala's return.  Clearly, both OPS and Sasikala being Thevar is a reason for this.  The OPS faction also points to the fact that AIADMK got wiped out in the South because AMMK clearly has split the AIADMK vote and handed a lot of seats to DMK even as AMMK itself won very little.  The poor election result has shifted power within the AIADMK from the ruling EPS faction toward a greater say for the OPS faction.  The chances of a Sasikala return to AIADMK is now clearly higher especially when you factor in the fact that the BJP wants a united AIADMK for the 2024 LS election.

[jaichind]

Phase 4 UP voting turnout was lower than in 2017.  So the trend in UP is clear, overall turnout is around 2%-3% lower than in 2017.  Mostly a somewhat negative signal for BJP.

[jaichind]

Anti-corruption poster in TN.  The word "bribe" was misspelled as "bride"  Yes, bribe giving is illegal and I guess so is bride giving.


BTW, back in the 1990s when corruption was somewhat a good deal worse than today on the PRC I used to see a bunch of signs like this (without misspelling at least) in the PRC as well.  They were useless and openly mocked.

[jaichind]

With UP phase 5 coming up which includes Rahul Gandhi's old seat of Amethi, it seems Rahul Gandhi roped in Bill Gates to de facto campaign with him.  It was more an event for a Bill Gates-funded self-help group but the timing and him going with Rahul Gandhi makes it clear that Bill Gates is de facto being used as a campaign prop for INC.  Of course, I doubt Bill Gates will bring in any votes in UP.

[jaichind]

UP Phase 5 (voting in a couple of days) results in the last few elections

2019 BJP 47 SP 4 BSP 7 INC 1 OTH 2
2017 BJP 50 SP 5 BSP 3 INC 1 OTH 2
2014 BJP 50 SP 5 INC 6
2012 BJP 5 SP 41 BSP 7 INC 6 OTH 2

[jaichind]

https://www.news18.com/news/politics/punjab-elections-2022-congresss-internal-assessment-hints-at-poor-outcome-4809557.html

"Punjab Elections 2022: Congress's Internal Assessment Hints at Poor Outcome"

INC internal post-election assessment of Punjab indicates that it has done poorly and will most likely get around 40 seats.  That should mean an AAP plurality but most likely not an AAP majority.  The assessment is mostly based on turnout patterns.

[jaichind]

Current betting markets

Punjab

AAP 64-66
INC 24-26
SAD 17-19

UP

BJP 223-226
SP  131-134
BSP  10-12

[jaichind]

India Today UP Phase 5 analysis

[jaichind]

Manipur INC is openly talking about a post-poll alliance with NPP and/or NPF as voting in phase I of Manipur winds down.  I guess they concluded that there is no way INC will get to a majority.

[jaichind]

WB municipalities elections in progress

2276 Wards across 108 Municipalities

AITC: contest 2254 wards; Supporting GJM in 22 Wards
BJP: contest 2026 wards
Left Front: contest 1865 wards; Supporting INC in 56 Wards
INC: const 962 wards; Supporting Left Front in 226 Wards

AITC wins 103 wards uncontested

AITC will sweep.  It will be interesting to see if BJP or Left Front end up with a higher vote share.

[jaichind]

Odisha Panchayat Elections:  Counting mostly done.

Out of 851 seats, it is

BJD   764
BJP     42
INC     38
OTH      7

Massive BJD sweep.  Big dropoff for BJP relative to last time.  INC was looking to make a comeback which did not take place.  There seems to be a large bloc of BJD/BJP swing voters that vote BJP in national elections but BJD in local elections with INC reduced to a vote share in the 15%-20% region and no prospect of making gains.

[jaichind]

Odisha Panchayat Elections:  Counting mostly done.

Out of 851 seats, it is

BJD   764
BJP     42
INC     38
OTH      7

Massive BJD sweep.  Big dropoff for BJP relative to last time.  INC was looking to make a comeback which did not take place.  There seems to be a large bloc of BJD/BJP swing voters that vote BJP in national elections but BJD in local elections with INC reduced to a vote share in the 15%-20% region and no prospect of making gains.

The change from 2017 is

BJD    +290
BJP     -260
INC      -20
Others  -10

Strong swing from BJP to BJD

[jaichind]

WB Municipal poll results.  Counting mostly done

AITC        1870
BJP             63
INC             59
Left Front    56
Others       119

INC votes are the most concentrated and the Left Front votes are most dispursed.  So these seat shares seem to indicate AITC vote share is around 60%-65%, Left Front around the same as BJP perhaps a bit ahead, and INC vote share lower than Left Front and BJP.

[jaichind]

WB  Municipal poll vote share (mostly matched my guess based on seat count)

AITC           63.4%
Left Front    14.1%
BJP             12.6%
INC              4.8%

[jaichind]

Distribution of Indian students in the world given recent events in Ukraine requiring evacuation of Indian students there.  Suprised how high PRC, Saudi Arabia, and the Philippines are. 

[jaichind]

Priyanka Gandhi got 20 million social media views of her offering prayers at Sihari Shiva Temple in Lucknow.  6 million of it are on FB.  Most likely this will not translate into votes but clearly, if she is willing to invest in UP she can be a leader of consequence in UP in the long run given her name recognition.

[jaichind]

Due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, all the media oxygen has been taken out of the UP elections.  There was dramatically less media coverage of rallies starting last week.  The argument for this hurting BJP is that the BJP strategy was based on holding rallies stage by stage to build momentum and this breaks it.  The argument for this hurting SP is that it "seems" SP did reasonably well the first few phases and they were counting on UP elections being in the news in Eastern UP for that trend to flow into the last phases to overcome the structural weakness of SP there.

[jaichind]

Voting in UP phase 6 is in progress

Results from the last few election cycles for this phase is

2019 BJP 45 BSP 12
2017 BJP 47 SP 3 BSP 5 INC 1 OTH 1
2014 BJP 53 SP 2 BSP 1 INC 1
2012 BJP 8 SP 32 BSP 9 INC 5 OTH 3

[jaichind]

Where I see the races now

Ranked Chances of the ruling party staying the largest party

BJP in Manipur
BJP in UP
-------------- 50/50-----------------
BJP in Uttarakhand
BJP in Goa
INC in Punjab


Ranked chances of the ruling party winning a majority

BJP in UP
--------------50/50------------------
BJP in Uttarakhand
BJP in Manipur
INC in Punjab
BJP in Goa

Uttarakhand is very bipolar which means the largest party most likely will win a majority.  Manipur and especially Goa will be very splinterd where the largest party is unlikely to win a majority