Good Evening India: Brief End of Day Analysis for 30th April
30th of April had a few surprises but most of the day went along expected lines as the Brahmin phase of heartland (mostly UP) did go in favour of BJP. Punjab did surprise with AAP’s performance which was the best by the party till date in this election season. Of course, one cannot really project how many seats AAP may end up winning today based on our current understanding of data points. Telangana is another surprise of today which has produced some stunners, but again it would be too early to dwell on that state too so we’ll limit our end of day analysis to the Heartland.
Uttar Pradesh
The Brahmin phase of UP lived up to its billing and did not create any surprises to the BJP in Awadh, unlike what we were being told about the Brahmin disenchantment due to the OBC outreach. Even in Budelkhand, BJP has done very well so it looks like a saffron day for Uttar Pradesh overall. Even in Rae Bareli, Sonia Gandhi may reduce her lead to almost half this time around. One of the failures of BJP today has been that it has somehow been reluctant to invest in key opposition seats like Rae Bareli and Amethi over last year or so when the anti-incumbent mood of India was becoming clear with each passing day. Unlike the post emergency election of 1977, when JP had ensured the defeat of both Indira and his son Sanjay Gandhi, BJP’s reluctance to take on the Gandhi family in its home turf was a bit of a surprise (Smriti Irani’s fight may turn out to be of token value).
Bihar
This is a phase that BJP has a good chance of sweeping all by itself. The division of anti-BJP votes, essentially segments of OBC and Muslims between RJD-Congress on the one hand and JDU on the other hand, has helped the saffron surge here. The whole Seemanchal momentum for RJD-Congress seems to be a temporary phenomenon as they were nowhere near their performance of 24th. Madhepura has the ability to send shivers down Nitish’s spine as the party is in real danger of a near-zero performance in a state that they rule. Lalu cannot yet be written off though as we must analyse the sub-segmental caste vote which may put him back in the reckoning.
EOD Note on Punjab and Telangana:
Punjab may surprise us, because the vote-shares need to be compared to turnouts and analysed deeper to understand the actual impact. AAP may even end up leading in a seat or two, but Congress’s performance may be affected in a big way due to this anti-incumbency vote getting divided.
In Telangana, the real X factor could be the cross-voting patterns which are suggesting that the voters have made a dual choice for assembly and Lok Sabha polls. If the traction in LS polls for BJP is anywhere as close to the point that some of our numbers are suggesting then this could produce some logic defying results. Most of our data collection here was not in real-time due to simultaneous parliamentary and assembly polls so we are reserving our verdict for Telangana until we have enough data points.
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jha @
jbond197 any updates on Bihar ? Getting conflicting reports. Some saying - its Lotus all the way whereas some saying that Laloo is making a great comeback based on Dailit and Muslim consolidation ?
Lalu is making a comeback based not on Dalit votes but Yadav + M votes. But since there are multiple players for M votes so it is getting divided thus benefiting NDA. Dalits are strongly behind NDA thanks to Paswan and Udit Raj!!
