2nd and final survey of Gujarat Elections. - BJP SET FOR ITS BIGGEST EVER WIN IN GUJARAT..
ALERT CITIZENS FORUM OF INDIA
2nd and final survey of Gujarat Elections.
BJP SET FOR ITS BIGGEST EVER WIN IN GUJARAT..
The temperature has gone up this winter as the Gujarat state assembly elections are just 8 days away. With no formidable third front, it’s a BJP vs Congress straight battle. As the fight is intense and clamor is high, Alert Citizens Forum have adopted a “ vote share vis a vis seat conversion methodology” to assess who will win how many seats. This method is adopted here because it is a direct contest between the two-major political parties.
We have forecast the vote share for this election based on the Modi wave (increase/decrease of vote percentage for the parties in the 2014 general election as compared to 2009) and other prevailing social-economic factors. This predicted vote share is multiplied with the average of the conversion ratio to get the projected seat share.
Data on election outcomes like vote share, number of seats have been sourced from the Election Commission of India and the Census 2011 population data of Gujarat.
The period of study has been from 1990 to 2012 elections. Except 1990, in all 5 assembly elections the vote share of BJP was 10 percentage points above that of Congress. The trend has been very consistent in favor of BJP.
As described above, the conversion ratio of leading and lagging parties is clubbed together. In case of Gujarat, for all the 6 elections, BJP was the leading party with an overall edge of around 1-point conversion ratio in every election with respect to Congress. Effectively, it is averaging the conversion ratio of BJP and Congress over the years. The vote share to seat conversion ratio of BJP and Congress for the target year (2017) is 2.5 and 1.5 respectively. The task was to predict the vote share for the parties in the 2017 election and then using the above-mentioned ratio, calculate the seats for the respective parties.
Two significant factors that will have an impact on the election outcome are the Modi wave (Gujarati asmita: an ordinary son of Gujarat is the Prime Minister of India) and Patidar’s anger against the state government.
There was an increase of 13.6 percentage points in vote share for BJP and a decrease of 9.9 percentage points in vote share for Congress in 2014 Loksabha election with respect to 2009. The increase in vote share to BJP is termed as Modi wave, as explained above.
The only difference in the case of Gujarat is that the face of Modi is not new in Gujarat. He was the face of BJP in the 2012 election, so the increase in vote share from 2012 election would not be equivalent to 13.6 percentage points. The effect is deflated by 50%. Effectively, Modi wave would add 6.8 percentage points to the BJP vote share of 2012 assembly election.
The Patidars constitute 15% of the total population of the state. Majority of this class has been ardent BJP voters for over two decades. The community started protesting for reservation in 2015 and government actions then angered them.
BJP is trying to pacify them, but a section among them is still very disappointed with the ruling party. It is expected that this section headed by Hardik Patel would vote against BJP in favour of Congress.
It is assumed that this section would be 25% of the Patidar population. Total Voters are 63% of the total population in Gujarat. The same proportion of voters is assumed for Patidars as well. The calculation shows that this section constitutes 2.4% vote share.
We have assumed that these Patidars who have traditionally voted for BJP in the past, would now switch to Congress.
The net effective increase in vote share for BJP is 4.4 percentage points and similarly the decrease of vote share for Congress is 7.6 percentage points. The two caste leaders Alpesh Thakor and Jignesh Mevani are also supporting Congress, but they are untested, and bereft on any specific agenda, so it is assumed that they would not be able to alter the situation on ground significantly.
Seat Prediction:
The predicted vote share for BJP and Congress in Gujarat is 52.3% and 31.4% respectively which translates into 130 seats for the BJP and 47 seats for the Congress.
This means that the BJP is poised to surpass its best ever tally of 127 seats in 2002 and win the election by a major landslide.
End of Part 5.
@ Dayanand Nene
Alert Citizens Forum of India.
The only difference in the case of Gujarat is that the face of Modi is not new in Gujarat. He was the face of BJP in the 2012 election, so the increase in vote share from 2012 election would not be equivalent to 13.6 percentage points. The effect is deflated by 50%. Effectively, Modi wave would add 6.8 percentage points to the BJP vote share of 2012 assembly election.
The Patidars constitute 15% of the total population of the state. Majority of this class has been ardent BJP voters for over two decades. The community started protesting for reservation in 2015 and government actions then angered them.
BJP is trying to pacify them, but a section among them is still very disappointed with the ruling party. It is expected that this section headed by Hardik Patel would vote against BJP in favour of Congress.
It is assumed that this section would be 25% of the Patidar population. Total Voters are 63% of the total population in Gujarat. The same proportion of voters is assumed for Patidars as well. The calculation shows that this section constitutes 2.4% vote share.
We have assumed that these Patidars who have traditionally voted for BJP in the past, would now switch to Congress.
The net effective increase in vote share for BJP is 4.4 percentage points and similarly the decrease of vote share for Congress is 7.6 percentage points. The two caste leaders Alpesh Thakor and Jignesh Mevani are also supporting Congress, but they are untested, and bereft on any specific agenda, so it is assumed that they would not be able to alter the situation on ground significantly.
Seat Prediction:
The predicted vote share for BJP and Congress in Gujarat is 52.3% and 31.4% respectively which translates into 130 seats for the BJP and 47 seats for the Congress.
This means that the BJP is poised to surpass its best ever tally of 127 seats in 2002 and win the election by a major landslide.
End of Part 5.
@ Dayanand Nene
Alert Citizens Forum of India.
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