India's hung parliament leads UPA win
When the word ‘content’ has replaced everything and anything on the big and small screen, it is unlikely for a commoner to go with predictions by motivated media agencies-cum-polling partners in the name of exit-polls. However, in 2019 elections no polling agency has provided an iota of evidence on social media platforms to suggest that they have in real conducted the exit polls. By definition of exit polls, it is performed on the same day of voting and with the amount of heat this summer, let’s not beguile ourselves to believe anything sold by the mighty players.
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It goes to suggest that there is no doubt on the credibility of data provided by the same polling agencies. Polling agencies primarily conducts post-poll surveys and, in this process, interviewee keeps h/er vote secret and perhaps responds randomly to the interviewer while having the share of fun. Therefore, BJP alliance getting 300 plus in most probability is not valid. The only value addition polling agencies offer for the media companies is majorly the trend side. The trend might be real, but perhaps numbers may not turn in the same direction.
Kindly don’t mix the vote percentage and seat percentage to understand this article. This article is written purely in response to the hullabaloo of exit polls, and from the point of view of winnability by seat percentage, while at the same time undermining the vote share percentage because I don’t have any data to back the claim, believing in this election caste card might not work but development issues will.
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The rule for predicting the winnability of any confused election anywhere in the world is often simple. In this article, I shall discuss the same. However, political parties and politicians apply the same rule while designing any election arithmetic, but with different arithmetic interval. In this article, we will not use any statistics. But will try to do simple arithmetic to see that can we match up to the trend predicted by the polling agencies?
So, let’s see –
BJP fighting 438 seats across the country, and the alliance goes like this:
· Maharashtra: Shivshena — 23 seats
· Tamil Nadu: AIADMK — 20 seats, PMK — 7 seats & DMDK — 4 seats
· Bihar: JDU — 17 seats & LJP — 6 seats
· Punjab: SAD — 10 seats
· Kerala: BDJS — 4 seats
· Assam: AGP — 3 seats
· UP: ADS — 2 seats
· Rest: 1 place each in various partner states.
Congress fighting 422 seats across the country, and the alliance goes like this:
· Tamil Nadu — DMK — 20 seats
· Maharashtra: NCP — 20 seats & SP — 2 seats
· Bihar & Jharkhand: BJD — 20 seats
· Bihar: HAM — 3 seats, VIP — 3 seat & RLSP — 5 seats
· Karnataka: JDS — 7 seats
· UP: JAP — 5 seats, ADKP — 2 seats
· Odisha & Jharkhand: JMM — 5 seats
· Tamil Nadu & Kerala: IML — 3 seats
· Tamil Nadu & Odisha: CPI (M) — 3 seats
· Tamil Nadu: VCK — 2 seats
· Jharkhand: JVMP — 2 seats
· Rest: 1 seat each in various partner states.
If we apply the rule of 50%, then BJP gets 219 and Congress with 211 seats. Now, if the same standard of 50% applies to BJP alliance partners, then 52 places seem achievable, and with Congress alliance partners 56 seats seem probable. Adding up, the BJP led alliance making up to 271 and Congress-led collaboration making up for 267 in the best scenarios. Interestingly, in the best scenario BJP falling short of 1 seat for 272 magic figure.
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Now let’s apply a rule of 40% to total seats fought by each party. With this application, BJP gets 175 seats, and Congress get 169. While doing this paper-based assessment, I have had access to no empirical data. Therefore, I am not applying the rule of 40% to alliance partners on both sides. After which, the total for BJP comes to 175 + 52 seats, and for Congress, it comes to 169 + 56 places: BJP Plus getting 227 and Congress Plus with 225.
Just in case, if we apply the rule of 40% to the alliance partners of both BJP and Congress. Then the tally might look like this: BJP Plus with 218 and Congress Plus with 217. Here, you might have realized what goes inside the minds of the people in the business of predicting election results. It’s noteworthy that by now you might have seen a trend in the article, similar to a more statistically sophisticated pattern predicted by polling agencies tilting in favour of BJP alliance, with simple arithmetic.
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But mind you that in this scenario parties like AAP in Delhi, BSP+SPA in UP, TMC in West Bengal will lead the alliance for Congress. Unless BSP and TMC leadership appear hesitant with the Congress at the last moment of friendship. Telangana with 17 seats and Odisha with 21 seats might do the magic for BJP. If we apply the rule of half in both states, then BJP tally goes up to 246 and in case of 30 seat addition to 257 seats. But the race only gets excited here onwards.
Now, let’s look at the data for what makeup others:
The other parties might garner a minimum of these many seats:
AAP: 9 of 33 seats on the practical side (Delhi, Punjab & Goa)
Now here onwards, let’s apply the rule of 50% to understand the complexities of the election:
BSP+SPA: 40 of 80 seats (UP)
TMC: 21 of 42 seats (WB)
TDP: 13 of 25 seats (AP)
The total of 83 seats from other parties makes up a minimum of 309 seats for UPA alliance. From here on you keep applying any rule below 50% to achieve your desired results. The 50% rule or below is the best-underestimated rule in the scenario of things of this confusing general election. I hope this article will serve better for those who are caught in the methodological question of sample size and framework while reading the results in advance.
Moreover, this is a simple exercise to read into election results. My only claim of 40 to 50 per cent rule is workable based on various observations, which suggest that BJP might decline sharply while the other big and small parties will see an upsurge. A similar trend is evident since post demonetization, in all the other state or minor elections held in the country since then. Moreover, the magnitude of this gap will be more because of the scale of the election itself.
The seat by seat assessment done my Mr P.P. Bajpai in the above video is exciting, and by the end of this video, you won’t find much difference between his reading and numbers mentioned in this article.
The assessment done in the article might be credulous, but at the same time, you may see with a single use of arithmetic the numbers mentioned here like 218, 219, 211, 217, 267, 309, 175 and 169 are close to the seats suggested by both, big companies or independent pollsters. This time the polls appear more disparaging because the range is so widely vague with 80 to 120 seat gap. For myself, I will be restricting my guess between 5 to 10 seats minus or plus, to the figures mentioned above, applying the rule of up to 50% drop or the rise of either party.
(UChicago Politics Twitter Public Policy Medium Staff Medium World Policy)
