India 2023 assembly elections

[jaichind]

https://organiser.org/2023/02/04/107025/bharat/decoding-the-hit-job-by-hindenburg-against-adani-group/

"Decoding the hit job by Hindenburg against Adani Group"

RSS mouthpiece Organizer Magazine comes out to defend Adani Group.  This is the first time I see RSS come out in favor of a business group.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Didnt the BJP have a bad 2018 as well or am I misremembering 

[jaichind]

Didnt the BJP have a bad 2018 as well or am I misremembering 

They did not do well in Telangana (their vote tactically voted for TRS to defeat INC) and lost all 3 Hindi heartland states (MP, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh.)  They underperformed in Chhattisgarh but outperformed in MP and Rajasthan even as they narrowly lost both states.

[jaichind]

https://www.outlookindia.com/national/bjp-against-division-of-tripura-even-if-it-fails-to-form-govt-himanta-news-260180

"BJP Against Division Of Tripura Even If It Fails To Form Govt: Himanta"

BJP finally moving to the strategy I thought it should have had from the beginning: accept large amount of losses in tribal seats to TIPRA but try to become the Bengali party to try to sweep the Bengali seats against Left Front-INC

BJP considering an alliance with TIPRA until the last moment and their current alliance with IPFA does undermine this strategy but better late than never.

[jaichind]

After a few days, INC is finally attacking Modi/BJP on the Adani issue.  What is funny is as soon as they start the attack Adani enterprise stock starts to bounce back. Not sure if this is just a coincidence or not.

[jaichind]

In Meghalaya NPP UDP INC AITC and BJP are all contesting almost all 60 seats so almost all seats will see a fun 5-way battle.  In some seats, it will be 6 way as GNC will be running in Garo seats.

In Nagaland, it seems the NDPP-BJP alliance has pretty much won ahead of time.  NPF and INC failed to round up enough candidates to want to run.  INC is running in only 27 out of 60 seats and NPF will only run in 22 seats.  For now, NDPP-BJP  domination is so complete that local leaders with influence are not bothered even to want to run against their candidates.

[jaichind]

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/rajasthan-chief-minister-ashok-gehlot-presented-old-budget-alleges-opposition-assembly-disrupted-3770001

""I Feel Sorry": Ashok Gehlot Apologies After Reading Old Budget"

Rajasthan  INC CM Ashok Gehlot  read the wrong speech and read out his budget from last year for his budget presentation for next year.

[jaichind]

https://www.reuters.com/world/india/msci-cuts-some-adani-group-companies-free-float-designations-2023-02-10/

"Adani crisis deepens with Moody's downgrades and index weighting cuts"

A key conflict between the Adani group and Hindenburg is the Hindenburg claim that a lot of Adani shares really held by dummy offshore companies.  MSCI will weigh in on this soon.  MSCI index weights are based on freely tradeable shares outstanding.  If MSCI lowers weights in Adani over the coming weeks then they are mostly confirming Hindenburg's accusations.  Of course, if that were to take place the Adani and BJP counter-argument would again focus on India vs the collective West and frame this as another sign that the collective West is trying to retard India's development.

[jaichind]

Modi to hold a rally today in Tripura

Pictures of pro-BJP crowds getting ready for the arrival of Modi



In the meantime Modi still en route to the rally from the airport

[jaichind]

Pro-INC Lok Poll poll of Hindu heartland

BJP 142 INC 30


Back in 2019, it was BJP 177 INC 6

[jaichind]

Pro-INC Lok Poll poll of South India

BJP 21 INC 39


Back in 2019, it was BJP 29 INC 29

[jaichind]

The Lok Poll poll for the 2024 LS elections is overly negative on BJP.  It assumes

a) The old INC upper caste, tribal and Dalit vote partially comes back in BJP-INC Hindi states
b) SP-INC tactical voting in UP plus consolidation of anti-BJP votes around SP
c) UPA holds its massive advantage in the Dravidian states from 2019
d) Anti-BJP vote in Karnataka consolidates around INC
e) BJP surge in Telangana kept under control avoiding anti-BRS tactical voting by INC voters
f) Jat vote turn away from BJP in Haryana
g) Backward consolidation behind RJD-JD(U) holds in Bihar

I can see how some of these things will be true in 2024 but for all of them to be true seems very difficult to pull off.

[jaichind]

https://indianexpress.com/article/political-pulse/bjp-tripura-left-cong-elections-8439680/

"BJP fears gap narrowing in Tripura as Left, Cong inch closer gingerly"

Tripura grassroots BJP seems less and less confident of a victory as the Left Front-INC vote seems to be consolidating.  Still how TIPRA does in the tribal seats as well as how they cut into the vote in non-tribal seats still will be decisive in my view.

[jaichind]

https://www.outlookindia.com/national/how-domination-of-two-factions-of-the-sangma-family-has-squeezed-political-space-in-meghalaya-magazine-261012

"How Domination Of Two Factions Of The Sangma Family Has Squeezed Political Space In Meghalaya"

Talks about the rivalry between NPP CM Conrad Sangma clan vs former INC (now AITC) CM Mukul Sangma clan.  Former INC CM Mukul Sangma is the entire AITC campaign and it would be interesting to see if the INC vote goes with INC or switches over the Mukul Sangma's AITC.

[jaichind]

TIPRA leader Pradyot Manikya Debbarma said in an interview with India Today that he will be glad to change his demand for Tipraland to be called Modiland if it means that there is a new state that has a permanent tribal majority.  Of course, as I pointed out before a separate state does not ensure that Bengali immigrants can still move into this new Tipraland or Modiland state.  What he has to advocate for is a wall to stop migrants from coming into this new tribal majority state.

[jaichind]

Jan Ki Baat poll on Tripura

                        Seat     Vote share
BJP-IPFT             33          40.5%
BJP rebel              1
Left Front-INC     14          39.5%
TIPRA                 12          18.5%


The closeness of the BJP+ vote share and Left Front-INC vote share does not jive with the seat difference, especially when in tribal areas it will be BJP-IPFT vs TIPRA so one would expect BJP-IPFT vote share lead Left Front-INC to be significant even if they are neck-to-neck in Bengali areas.  These poll results seem to suggest that BJP lost the INC vote in Left Front Bengali safe seats leading to massive Left Front victories but BJP holds the INC vote in marginal Bengali seats.

Poll has BJP sweeping Bengali Hindu votes but TIPRA sweeps the Tribal vote.  If so I find it surprising that TIPRA only wins 12 seats.

[jaichind]

Something is fishy about the Jan Ki Baat poll crosstabs.  If you take the reasonable assumption that Bengali Hindus are 56%, Bengali Muslims are 10%, and Tribals are 31% of the population and you plug in their cross tabs you get

BJP-IPFT          42%
Left Front-INC  27%
TIPRA              27%

which is not at all like the poll vote share projections.

If you go with the poll top line vote share numbers it is fairly negative for the BJP.
Tripura's voting history is that the state ruling party way out performs in LS elections.  The reason is the voters fear reprisals in terms of benefits for areas that did not vote ruling party but do vote their real preferences during assembly elections.  This should carry over in pre-election polling where the ruling party will be overestimated.

In 2018 exit polls (and this poll is not an exit poll) were split on the winning front (Left Front or BJP-IPFT) even though the results had a significant opposition BJP-IPFT win.  If the vote share lead of BJP-IPFT over Left Front-INC is tiny then the BJP-IPFT is in trouble.

I still stick to my prediction of BJP emerging as the largest party but not a majority and will need to break INC or buy off TIPRA to return to power.

[jaichind]

https://www.outlookindia.com/national/meghalaya-polls-can-mamata-banerjee-s-tmc-shed-the-tag-of-an-outsider--magazine-261006

"Meghalaya Polls: Can Mamata Banerjee's TMC Shed The Tag Of An 'Outsider'?"

The article points out that NPP sees AITC as a threat and is trying to consolidate the tribal vote behind NPP by portraying AITC as a Bengali party.  NPP also raises the issue of Christians under attack in the rest of India in a veiled attack on BJP.  Note that NPP does not come out in the open to attack the BJP since a likely NPP government could need BJP support to get to a majority and will need federal subsidies to run the government.

[jaichind]

In Tripura, the BJP has rolled out Modi several times to rally the BJP vote.  The main Modi line of appeal is to replicate the UP experience by targeting the women vote by focusing on law and order issues.

[jaichind]

https://zeenews.india.com/video/india/dna-governments-u-turn-on-cow-hug-day-2572003.html

"DNA: Government's 'U-turn' on Cow Hug Day"

The NDA government tried to rebrand Valentine day as Cow Hug Day but withdrew the attempt after being mocked domestically and internationally.

The core issue is similar to the Love Jihad and anti-Romeo Squad controversy.  In rural India there is a large majority of local leaders that feel strongly that parents and local clan leaders should select the husband/wife of their children.  This is to ensure that inter-caste and inter-community marriages does not occur.   Marriages in rural India are often alliances of various families and clans and any family that is viewed as not being able to make their will stick loses credibility in their village.

Valentines Day runs counter to that need so there have been various attempts to crack down on it.  Historically this has been anti-Romeo squads that goes after unmarried couples (especially those that seem be dating outside their caste or community) in the streets claiming that they are there to stop a potential sexual assault.  This Cow Hug Day seems to be be latest attempt that clearly has failed.

[jaichind]

I have been thinking about this  Adani vs Hindenburg saga.  One Adani defense is that everything the Hindenburg wrote, many of which are red flags in terms of not fraud but poor risk management, has been in the Indian public domain for a while.  Reading the Indian media coverage this does seem to be true.  My next question is why would these red flags not trigger a selloff as they did when the Hindenburg report came out.   It then occurred to me that Adani being so close to Modi actually help it shield itself from reporting these red flags.  Any Indian media that reports these issues with Adani can then be viewed as a political attack on Modi and dismissed by investors. It hs when a foreign non-Indian entity came out with the same concerns does the Indian investment community take it seriously and then the Adani stock then sold off.

[jaichind]

https://thewire.in/media/income-tax-officials-bbc

"Modi Documentary Fallout: Govt Launches Income Tax 'Survey' at BBC Offices in India"

Modi strikes back

[jaichind]

Pro-INC Lok Poll poll of East India

BJP 17 INC 3


Back in 2019 it was BJP 26 INC 3

[jaichind]

Voting is in progress in Tripura.  As of  1PM turnout is 51.35%.  Back in 2018 turnout was over 91%.  Most likely turnout will be similar this time around.

[jaichind]

Pro-INC Lok Poll poll of West India

BJP 46 INC 9



Back in 2019  it was BJP 51 INC 2