Delhi Elections 2020 – It’s AAP all the way!

 

BJP is heading to one of its biggest ever defeat in assembly elections. AAP is poised to retain power and that too with an emphatic victory similar to 2015 where it routed BJP and had a dream victory. In 2020 also it is poised to win 65+ seats and increase its percentage to 58%.

In 2015 AAP won with an average victory margin of 25% ! The victory margin has been extremely high in majority of seats. Over 50% of seats have victory margin >20% and 33% of seats with margin greater than 30%. With such a support from the voters, AAP could only lose if its performance has been terrible in the last 5 years.

Delhi has always seen a bipolar election in its 29 years of electoral history. Out of those, Congress has ruled for 19 years while BJP for 5 and now AAP for 5 years. The emergence of AAP has seen the disappearance of Congress. Delhi has always looked for strong local leaders. With the demise of Shiela Dixit, Madan Lal Khurana & Sushma Swaraj, there is a vacuum of strong local leadership within BJP & INC.

Kejriwal has emerged as a strong leader who has changed the quality of life of Delhi people. He has revamped schools & doubled its capacity, provided free healthcare, free 20k litres of clean water,  free & discounted electricity, free transport for women & better road infrastructure. Many of its schemes have reached out to majority of the people.

There is a strong connection which he has managed to build with the people, and he is here to stay…

All the good work he has done are factual and acknowledged by the people. In such a scenario, it is most likely that AAP should retain all of its 67 seats it won in 2015 and may possibly increase the tally too and again completely wipe out BJP from the National capital.

What has happened to BJP post 2013 when it emerged as the single largest party in the Delhi elections but could not come to power ?? 2013 onward was the emergence of the Modi-era & it was moving towards electoral invincibility. Modi led BJP to many victories across many states.

So, why is BJP losing ground now so rapidly at the local level ?

Modi’s emergence has actually crippled the local leadership of BJP. The local leaders have not been empowered enough to grow out of Modi’s shadow.  Modi & Shah yet make all the decisions at the local level. The voters are now making clear distinction in their choice between Central & Local government. Hence it is imperative to develop strong local leaders. The Modi factor has itself led to weakening of its local leadership…

Delhi people are very clear in their choice of a leader…. Modi at centre because of the tough decisions he has taken on important National issues. At local level they have given a BIG THUMBS UP to Kejriwal who has made a huge difference at the grassroots level. In addition, Delhi police’s image has taken a beating and is now perceived as a being a dummy for the Central leadership. The demand on statehood for Delhi will accelerate from the people during AAP’s second term.

The good work that Kejriwal has done (along with many freebies given out) has overshadowed all other issues and most of the election issues which BJP is highlighting are actually non-issues for the voters. BJP is trying it’s best to destroy AAP’s image in the hope that it will win some seats. Shaheen baug, CAA, NRC are actually non-impactful issues to the voters. In fact, because of CAA-NRC, BJP may actually lose one of its 3 seats it has i.e. Mustafabad to AAP since this has a significant Muslim population and they had won it with a low margin of 6000 votes.

BJP needs a rework on its strategy if they need to keep winning at the local level. It needs to send back many of its central leaders to the states to strengthen the local infrastructure.

BJP will need to do a bit of de-Modi-tization within their own party !

This humiliating defeat to Kejriwal will be an eye-opener for BJP !

UP 2017 ELECTION PREDICTION

The 2017 UP elections has become a national event for Indians. For BJP it is critical that they win so that they can get the control over Rajya Sabha.

Akhilesh Yadav is hoping that the ‘orchestrated’ revolt within the SP will have a positive impact within their voter base and sideline the nepotism, goondaraj & corruption within the SP. This would project him as the young development face for UP & a new SP leader.

Muslim votes may probably be divided in these elections. They were not happy on how SP handled Muzzafarnagar riots and Dadri issue. Mulayam and Akhilesh visited the riot affected areas only 6 months after the incident. This has left the Muslim community angry with them. BSP has been silently trying to woo Muslims towards them by allocating at least 100 seats to them. There may be a spilt of votes between SP-INC, BSP & to some extent to BJP! BJP, by cleverly supporting the Triple Talaq issue, hopes that they get secret support from the Muslim women, especially in the urban regions. Even in 2014 general elections, they did get 7% of total Muslim votes.

It seems that SP is not confident of victory and hence they have aligned with Rahul Gandhi so that they can get the Muslim votes of the Congress. This seems to be a desperate move especially since Congress has recently only been a liability to the other parties with whom they have tied up. We will soon know if allowing Congress to piggyback on them is going to benefit SP or not.

BJP is confident that Modi can recreate the magic of 2014 which gave them a record of 72 LS seats in UP! Amit Shah was the architect of the 2014 victory and he is now hoping that they repeat it again in 2017.  He has been focusing in strengthening the BJP at the grassroot level. There has been meticulous planning in allocating seats in each assembly. They have also managed to attract defectors from other parties.

BJP knows that they have got overwhelming support on the demonetization drive & is hoping that it will help translate into votes. Also there is a significant population from UP in the Indian Armed Forces and hence the Surgical strikes done by India on Pakistan will help them further.  The UP elections is no longer at a regional level but is being fought at an National level.

As per my prediction model, it seems that BJP will get close to 2/3^rd of majority in UP. BJP will win with 247 seats (+- 5%) and come to power.  BSP & SP would be very close 2^nd & 3^rd. Congress as expected, will be insignificant & on decline….