India 2021 assembly elections - TN, Kerala, WB, Assam, and perhaps J&K

[OSR stands with Israel]

Do you think the WB trend to the BJP is a long term trend

[jaichind]

What are the signs that BJP is doing better than TMC in WB?

Is a hung assembly possible in Kerela?

I think Assam is lean UPA at this stage. TN and Puducherry seem straightforward wins for UPA and NDA respectively.

Well, pre-voting polls in WB were clearly close and moving in BJP's election.  Using my rule of thumb that pre-voting polls tends to overestimate the ruling bloc it seems BJP should have the edge.

I doubt there is a hung assembly in Kerala. For that to take place NDA has to win 5 seats or more which is very unlikely. 

Given pre-election polls have both UPA and UDF within striking distance in both Kerala and Assam I still think they will pull off upsets. 

[jaichind]

Do you think the WB trend to the BJP is a long term trend

This is pretty clear.  Even if AITC wins in 2021 it is clear that BJP will win in 2026.

[jaichind]

BJP have called off most future rallies in WB but some which have been well planned in advance are still moving forward.  This is a clear sign that BJP feels it has the most to gain from rallies and campaigning.

Here is Amit Shah in a roadshow


Here is a venue getting ready for a rally to be held by Modi

[jaichind]

Modi cancels rest of his WB rallies

[jaichind]

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/delhi/pm-narendra-modi-pulls-up-arvind-kejriwal-for-live-telecast-of-meeting-243194

"PM Narendra Modi pulls up Arvind Kejriwal for live telecast of meeting"

Political football between Modi and Delhi AAP CM Kejriwal.  It seems Kejriwal  decided to livestream a virtual private meeting between Modi and various CM where the public saw Kejriwal essentially crying in front of Modi asking for help (oxygens, vaccinations etc etc) and that Delhi is on the verge of a catastrophe.  Cleraly Modi does not look good from this exchange and that seems to be the goal of Kejriwal in his attempt to shift blame to the center.

[eos]

https://twitter.com/Morewithshashi

This independent pollster has revealed exit poll data for some WB districts ahead of the exit poll on the 29th. He has a good track record, but he got the 2019 LS election in WB quite wrong.

I made a rough calculation of the seats from districts released so far:

TMC - 98
BJP - 43
INC - 1
TMC Leaning - 18
BJP Leaning - 11
Close Contest - 17

That's 188 of 223 seats contested so far. He also made this tweet:

Initial Ground Report by Ground Zero Research after Sixth Phase of Elections- Game is over in Bengal.

Exit Poll on 29th April.....

Seems to suggest that TMC Has won. Assuming BJP wins all the BJP leaning seats, as well as the 'close contests, their seats will be 71/223 so far. The BJP need another 77 seats for a majority out of a remaining 71.

[eos]

Actually, just realised it would be 71/188 if the BJP wins all BJP leaning seats and close contests. They still have a chance for a majority (if this pollster is correct), but they would need 77 seats out of the remaining 71 seats + the 35 unreleased seats from phase I to VI.

[jaichind]

https://twitter.com/Morewithshashi

This independent pollster has revealed exit poll data for some WB districts ahead of the exit poll on the 29th. He has a good track record, but he got the 2019 LS election in WB quite wrong.

I made a rough calculation of the seats from districts released so far:

TMC - 98
BJP - 43
INC - 1
TMC Leaning - 18
BJP Leaning - 11
Close Contest - 17

That's 188 of 223 seats contested so far. He also made this tweet:

Initial Ground Report by Ground Zero Research after Sixth Phase of Elections- Game is over in Bengal.

Exit Poll on 29th April.....

Seems to suggest that TMC Has won. Assuming BJP wins all the BJP leaning seats, as well as the 'close contests, their seats will be 71/223 so far. The BJP need another 77 seats for a majority out of a remaining 71.

The same pollster Ground Zero also had a pre-election poll with UPA with a slight lead over NDA.

I guess I would think that most of the contest and some of the lean AITC would go BJP on the premise that the ruling party are going to be overestimated.

[eos]

https://twitter.com/Morewithshashi

This independent pollster has revealed exit poll data for some WB districts ahead of the exit poll on the 29th. He has a good track record, but he got the 2019 LS election in WB quite wrong.

I made a rough calculation of the seats from districts released so far:

TMC - 98
BJP - 43
INC - 1
TMC Leaning - 18
BJP Leaning - 11
Close Contest - 17

That's 188 of 223 seats contested so far. He also made this tweet:

Initial Ground Report by Ground Zero Research after Sixth Phase of Elections- Game is over in Bengal.

Exit Poll on 29th April.....

Seems to suggest that TMC Has won. Assuming BJP wins all the BJP leaning seats, as well as the 'close contests, their seats will be 71/223 so far. The BJP need another 77 seats for a majority out of a remaining 71.

The same pollster Ground Zero also had a pre-election poll with UPA with a slight lead over NDA.

I guess I would think that most of the contest and some of the lean AITC would go BJP on the premise that the ruling party are going to be overestimated.

Do you mean the 2019 LS election?

[jaichind]

https://twitter.com/Morewithshashi

This independent pollster has revealed exit poll data for some WB districts ahead of the exit poll on the 29th. He has a good track record, but he got the 2019 LS election in WB quite wrong.

I made a rough calculation of the seats from districts released so far:

TMC - 98
BJP - 43
INC - 1
TMC Leaning - 18
BJP Leaning - 11
Close Contest - 17

That's 188 of 223 seats contested so far. He also made this tweet:

Initial Ground Report by Ground Zero Research after Sixth Phase of Elections- Game is over in Bengal.

Exit Poll on 29th April.....

Seems to suggest that TMC Has won. Assuming BJP wins all the BJP leaning seats, as well as the 'close contests, their seats will be 71/223 so far. The BJP need another 77 seats for a majority out of a remaining 71.

The same pollster Ground Zero also had a pre-election poll with UPA with a slight lead over NDA.

I guess I would think that most of the contest and some of the lean AITC would go BJP on the premise that the ruling party are going to be overestimated.

Do you mean the 2019 LS election?

That ended up being a pro-incumbent wave.  I agree the rule of thumb of pre-election polls overestimating the ruling party does not hold in a pro-incumbent wave which we only know after the fact.  Usually a pro-incumbent wave is built around a strong personality incumbent like Indira Gandhi in 1971 and Modi in 2019.  I agree this is possible in WB with AITC CM Mamata Banerjee.  We will know May 2nd.

[jaichind]

Phase 7 is a INC and Left Front stronghold with some of the seats (mostly in Murshidabad) being very Muslim heavy and have a tradition of voting INC even after AITC split from INC.  Obviously if AITC and Left Front-INC-ISF split the Muslim vote here the BJP will be the main gainer.

[jaichind]

With respect to COVID-19 spread the acceleration of the spread seems to have slowed down and in Maharashtra where the second wave started is clearly slowing down.  I think the peak will be in mid May or so before this very large wave starts to recede.  In WB the spread is continuing to accelerate.  Vote counting May 2nd will clearly be affected.

[DL]

I wonder if the BJP will lose lots of votes as a result of Modi's total mishandling of the Covid pandemic?

[eos]

https://twitter.com/Morewithshashi

This independent pollster has revealed exit poll data for some WB districts ahead of the exit poll on the 29th. He has a good track record, but he got the 2019 LS election in WB quite wrong.

I made a rough calculation of the seats from districts released so far:

TMC - 98
BJP - 43
INC - 1
TMC Leaning - 18
BJP Leaning - 11
Close Contest - 17

That's 188 of 223 seats contested so far. He also made this tweet:

Initial Ground Report by Ground Zero Research after Sixth Phase of Elections- Game is over in Bengal.

Exit Poll on 29th April.....

Seems to suggest that TMC Has won. Assuming BJP wins all the BJP leaning seats, as well as the 'close contests, their seats will be 71/223 so far. The BJP need another 77 seats for a majority out of a remaining 71.

The same pollster Ground Zero also had a pre-election poll with UPA with a slight lead over NDA.

I guess I would think that most of the contest and some of the lean AITC would go BJP on the premise that the ruling party are going to be overestimated.

Do you mean the 2019 LS election?

That ended up being a pro-incumbent wave.  I agree the rule of thumb of pre-election polls overestimating the ruling party does not hold in a pro-incumbent wave which we only know after the fact.  Usually a pro-incumbent wave is built around a strong personality incumbent like Indira Gandhi in 1971 and Modi in 2019.  I agree this is possible in WB with AITC CM Mamata Banerjee.  We will know May 2nd.

Ground Zero is doubling down, saying TMC will win 40+ seats in the next two phases, while BJP will win less than 20.

[eos]

I wonder if the BJP will lose lots of votes as a result of Modi's total mishandling of the Covid pandemic?

The wave started too late to affect Assam and the southern states. It might play a role in the last three phases of the WB election. On the other hand, pro-BJP voters could blame the state government.

[jaichind]

I wonder if the BJP will lose lots of votes as a result of Modi's total mishandling of the Covid pandemic?

It will make very little difference.  The reasons are

a) By the time the second COVID-19 wave hit most of the voting already took place.  This could in theory make a difference in the latter phases in WB except for

b) The segment of voters that will vote on this issue are urban higher income Upper Caste that consume their news via English (versus Hindi) media.  This group voted Modi/BJP or AAP in 2014 and clearly swung away from Modi/BJP in 2019 while other groups (mostly OBC Hindus, Dalits and tribal) swung toward Modi/BJP.  In other words the group most likely to shift away from Modi/BJP already were not voting Modi/BJP in 2019. 

Most of the population judge Modi by his intention.  The fact is various Modi/BJP welfare schemes in the 2014-2019 period were effective in shifting some resources to those at the bottom of the income and social ladder.  Mess-ups like Demonization and GST rollout problems were not viewed as Modi's fault as most felt that Modi's intentions were pure even if execution was poor.

As I noted before Modi carefully projects himself in the image of a Hindu monk (he is single and has no children) dedicated to making India great.  Very few voters doubt his intentions.  This is way any direct attack on Modi, which Rahul Gandhi has been trying since 2014, tend to fall flat on its face.

[jaichind]

Ground Zero is doubling down, saying TMC will win 40+ seats in the next two phases, while BJP will win less than 20.

At a certain level I agree with them in the sense that historical trends show the winning party/front should win a decisive victory which is to say that WB tend so swing uniformly like TN.  So I expect the winning party, be it AITC or BJP, to win at least 170 seats or so.  So Ground Zero is really saying that it is AITC that will win at least 170 seats while other, including myself, tends to believe that BJP is the more likely party to win 170+ seats on the premise that pre-election polls tends to overestimate the ruling party.

To hedge myself for me to believe this does throw out other trends, namely that the BJP tends to underperform LS election results at the state assembly level.  BJP+ won 40.64% in the 2019 LS election in WB and one would expect them to underperform this level in the WB assembly elections.  A similar logic was true for the INC in the 1980s.  The last mega pro-incumbent wave at the LS level was INC in 1984.  INC won 48.16% of the vote 1984 WB but fell to 41.81% in the 1987 WB assembly elections.  So one would expect the BJP baseline in 2021 WB assembly to be around 35%.  For the BJP to win decisively they will have to be at around 45%.  So anti-incumbency PLUS Left Front anti-AITC tactical voting would have to create this 10% gap.  I can see why many pollsters would doubt this from their data.  I just happen to believe that this is possible if the BJP is already polling at 38%-42% in pre-election polling.   

[jaichind]

WB Phase 7 data on 2016 and 2019 results

[jaichind]

It seems COVID-19 second wave did impact Modi's approval but not dramatically.  Of course this could change if this wave runs it course over the next couple of months but I doubt it would make that much of a difference.

[eos]

Ground Zero is doubling down, saying TMC will win 40+ seats in the next two phases, while BJP will win less than 20.

At a certain level I agree with them in the sense that historical trends show the winning party/front should win a decisive victory which is to say that WB tend so swing uniformly like TN.  So I expect the winning party, be it AITC or BJP, to win at least 170 seats or so.  So Ground Zero is really saying that it is AITC that will win at least 170 seats while other, including myself, tends to believe that BJP is the more likely party to win 170+ seats on the premise that pre-election polls tends to overestimate the ruling party.

To hedge myself for me to believe this does throw out other trends, namely that the BJP tends to underperform LS election results at the state assembly level.  BJP+ won 40.64% in the 2019 LS election in WB and one would expect them to underperform this level in the WB assembly elections.  A similar logic was true for the INC in the 1980s.  The last mega pro-incumbent wave at the LS level was INC in 1984.  INC won 48.16% of the vote 1984 WB but fell to 41.81% in the 1987 WB assembly elections.  So one would expect the BJP baseline in 2021 WB assembly to be around 35%.  For the BJP to win decisively they will have to be at around 45%.  So anti-incumbency PLUS Left Front anti-AITC tactical voting would have to create this 10% gap.  I can see why many pollsters would doubt this from their data.  I just happen to believe that this is possible if the BJP is already polling at 38%-42% in pre-election polling.  

Ground Zero is tripling down now.

https://twitter.com/Morewithshashi/status/1386686197968166915



Ignores Sheila Diskhit, which has been pointed out.

I now wonder whether Ground Zero has an anti-BJP lean? Or is he so confident of the result that he is trying to distinguish himself with bold statements? This has the potential to backfire.

[jaichind]

Ground Zero is doubling down, saying TMC will win 40+ seats in the next two phases, while BJP will win less than 20.

At a certain level I agree with them in the sense that historical trends show the winning party/front should win a decisive victory which is to say that WB tend so swing uniformly like TN.  So I expect the winning party, be it AITC or BJP, to win at least 170 seats or so.  So Ground Zero is really saying that it is AITC that will win at least 170 seats while other, including myself, tends to believe that BJP is the more likely party to win 170+ seats on the premise that pre-election polls tends to overestimate the ruling party.

To hedge myself for me to believe this does throw out other trends, namely that the BJP tends to underperform LS election results at the state assembly level.  BJP+ won 40.64% in the 2019 LS election in WB and one would expect them to underperform this level in the WB assembly elections.  A similar logic was true for the INC in the 1980s.  The last mega pro-incumbent wave at the LS level was INC in 1984.  INC won 48.16% of the vote 1984 WB but fell to 41.81% in the 1987 WB assembly elections.  So one would expect the BJP baseline in 2021 WB assembly to be around 35%.  For the BJP to win decisively they will have to be at around 45%.  So anti-incumbency PLUS Left Front anti-AITC tactical voting would have to create this 10% gap.  I can see why many pollsters would doubt this from their data.  I just happen to believe that this is possible if the BJP is already polling at 38%-42% in pre-election polling.  

Ground Zero is tripling down now.

https://twitter.com/Morewithshashi/status/1386686197968166915



Ignores Sheila Diskhit, which has been pointed out.

I now wonder whether Ground Zero has an anti-BJP lean? Or is he so confident of the result that he is trying to distinguish himself with bold statements? This has the potential to backfire.

I think they are wise to make this bet.  I think the result will either be a decisive victory for BJP or a decisive victory for AITC.  If Ground Zero polling show a narrow AITC lead I would come out with a projection of a decisive AITC victory.  Since WB has a tendency to have decisive victory and Ground Zero has AITC ahead they might as well predict a deceive AITC victory.  If the BJP wins they are going to look bad anyway.  If AITC wins by a large margin they will look very good.

[eos]

Ground Zero is doubling down, saying TMC will win 40+ seats in the next two phases, while BJP will win less than 20.

At a certain level I agree with them in the sense that historical trends show the winning party/front should win a decisive victory which is to say that WB tend so swing uniformly like TN.  So I expect the winning party, be it AITC or BJP, to win at least 170 seats or so.  So Ground Zero is really saying that it is AITC that will win at least 170 seats while other, including myself, tends to believe that BJP is the more likely party to win 170+ seats on the premise that pre-election polls tends to overestimate the ruling party.

To hedge myself for me to believe this does throw out other trends, namely that the BJP tends to underperform LS election results at the state assembly level.  BJP+ won 40.64% in the 2019 LS election in WB and one would expect them to underperform this level in the WB assembly elections.  A similar logic was true for the INC in the 1980s.  The last mega pro-incumbent wave at the LS level was INC in 1984.  INC won 48.16% of the vote 1984 WB but fell to 41.81% in the 1987 WB assembly elections.  So one would expect the BJP baseline in 2021 WB assembly to be around 35%.  For the BJP to win decisively they will have to be at around 45%.  So anti-incumbency PLUS Left Front anti-AITC tactical voting would have to create this 10% gap.  I can see why many pollsters would doubt this from their data.  I just happen to believe that this is possible if the BJP is already polling at 38%-42% in pre-election polling.  

Ground Zero is tripling down now.

https://twitter.com/Morewithshashi/status/1386686197968166915



Ignores Sheila Diskhit, which has been pointed out.

I now wonder whether Ground Zero has an anti-BJP lean? Or is he so confident of the result that he is trying to distinguish himself with bold statements? This has the potential to backfire.

I think they are wise to make this bet.  I think the result will either be a decisive victory for BJP or a decisive victory for AITC.  If Ground Zero polling show a narrow AITC lead I would come out with a projection of a decisive AITC victory.  Since WB has a tendency to have decisive victory and Ground Zero has AITC ahead they might as well predict a deceive AITC victory.  If the BJP wins they are going to look bad anyway.  If AITC wins by a large margin they will look very good.

Isn't that a bit non-scientific? I would have assumed pollsters would publish the data as it is, subject to corrections for sampling bias etc.

[eos]

Parakala Prabhakar, the husband of India's Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharam, came out very strongly against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's management of the Covid pandemic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu2ryLPOME4

At first, I thought they might have been separated, but they are still together. Prabhakar was a leading member of the Andra Pradesh BJP, but he seems to be an independent policy analyst these days. Even still, it's surprising to see him criticising Modi.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Absoutley terrible Modi can be such a disaster and still have his popularity.