#VM view – Political Countdown – April 21, 2024

not a pitch report for cricket but elections – ground is ready and players already arrived.. heading towards June 4, 2024

Have been rolling out monthly political commentary for almost a year now and I’m going to end this with results of parliamentary polls in June 2024. The battle is getting hot and the scenario changing very fast. For next three months i.e. till June 2024 on public demand I will be rolling out the weekly countdown, covering the key actions of the leading party (parties if one is willing to accept that there is a contest) and who stands where in run up to the polls

Caveat – The write up is my assessment basis the news and analysis I’ve been reading in various print/ electronic / social media and in no way a reflection of my political allegiance. The views are my personal and not to be attributed to my employer, my family or any other person with whom I have ever discussed the political matters

Idea is just to summarise the developments at one place to project a holistic picture. Names of parties have been frequently used but in no way aimed at demeaning any individual or party. Due care is taken to ensure that there is no reference to any religion, however at some places the reference of caste say like SC / ST / OBC might come up given that there are some political parties who’s existence is in the name of caste they represent and that is only to express the specific point and not to demean or paint negatively anyone basis their caste or creed

First phase of voting is over and now we are beyond the stage of assessment as to what party / block is going to achieve what? Now the post mortem of elections has begun and that’s the reason I am trying to go in for a different assessment today
It is not a cakewalk election for either group as was being felt earlier. Wherever one block was in comfort zone, some headwinds have started emanating and now this will be seen as to who rises above to take on those challenges
Unfortunately the vote percentage in first phase has gone down and that doesn’t augur well for the country that only 60% public is going out and voting. In a scenario where there are no phase wise exit polls there is no clarity on which side is the winner though both are claiming it to be disadvantage other side
One thing is for sure abki baar 400 paar has somewhere taken a back seat and the focus and emphasis of party is to gain as many seats as it can. But there was one ambiguity I found in statement by one chief minister that we will aim to win by bigger vote margins
Whether you win by 1000 votes or a lac it is only one seat so instead the focus should be on adding seats rather than victory margin and this is where at times parties with higher vote percentage also tend to falter, so ideally the focus has to be on adding new seats instead of widening the margin – let that however be an add on benefit though
Congress on its part is banking entirely on South but some smart moves in North can make the contest interesting. If in North Congress is trying its best to disturb the BJP applecart, in South it’s the other way round and that’s why I’ve profiled the constituencies from South to North where the contest is going to be a bit keen
Some high profile seats – Thiruvananthapuram – the fight is going to be interesting and whether Shashi Tharoor will manage to become 4 time MP is the question. Chances may still be high but this time it’s not a cakewalk
Coimbatore – will Annamalai be able to spring a surprise; with 70% voting in the constituency the ground force is optimistic and BJP claims that high voter turnout is a vote against the local state government. At the same the news coming in that it’s not a cakewalk for DMK as was expected tends to add a glimmer of hope and if the BJP manages to open its account it will be their Karnataka moment of 1991 when S Mallikarjunaiah had won Tumkur
Hyderabad – what will be the fate of Owaisi – will there be an upset? A lot of media scrutiny is there on the constituency but will the demographics offer advantage to anyone else. This seems to be a tough question to answer at a seat that he has inherited from his father
Kadapa – The fight of cousins in the family pocket brough as YS Sharmila the daughter of late chief minister and sister of current CM contesting as Congress candidate against her cousin a YSR Congress nominee. Jagan has lost some momentum during last 5 years but is still strong and in the battle of siblings it will be worth a watch. She may have some advantage though
Karnataka has many seats that will see a close fight, both Bengaluru North and South; Belgaum and Hampi, there is Tumkuru and then there is the Mysore Mandya belt. One state where the Congress has pinned a lot of hopes but looks like the alliance factor may come into play and BJP may manage to pip it to pole position
Baramati in Maharashtra – the Nanad Bhojai fight – I mean Supriya Sule is contesting against Ajit Pawar’s wife Sunetra Pawar and Ratnagiri gets Narayan Rane to contest as the South Mumbai seat is still having claimants from Sena and BJP. For a change this time no Milind Deora in contest as he’s moved to Rajya Sabha but the big question – why is it that the NDA hasn’t managed to conclude the seat sharing arrangement in full
Rajkot – From here starts the initiative somewhere shifting to the other side. It was given 26 on 26 but one wrong statement in election season can have wider ramifications and this has come out clearly in last fortnight. Modi Shah will have to work overtime to turn the tide again and make it 26/0
Bharuch – again in Gujarat where Congress is backing AAP candidate who has following in the region on his own instead of party and that can make the contest interesting. So in a way two seats are getting into the loop in Gujarat for now
Chhindwara – Kamal Nath’s turf and BJP will be eyeing the same as this was the seat that spoiled the 100% record of the party in 2019. The contest also becomes interesting because there were rumours of the family trying to switch sides but that didn’t work out. Will Nakul Nath manage to retain the seat is the question? A bit difficult this time though
Jalore – though the candidate is Vaibhav Gehlot it’s the personal prestige of 3 time former Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot who’s going all out to ensure his son wins but then it’s been 25/0 both in 2014 and 2019. Looks difficult
Surprisingly the maximum rumours are floating around since y’day regarding Rajasthan as the odds are rising for a loss of 5-7 seats. Looks unlikely but you can’t dismiss it completely because the fall out of Gujarat statement can be felt in the royal land and even otherwise the element of dissidence is relatively higher in the state for BJP. This will be interesting to watch
Rohtak – Not the only constituency in Haryana that is a high decibel constituency but Deepender Hooda will most likely be the candidate and if that’s the case given Bhupender Hooda’s track record there is a chance Congress may turn it around. It was senior Hooda who had defeated Chaudhary Devi Lal in 1991 and emerged as a giant killer
Hisar – will it be Kuldeep Bishnoi from BJP or someone else; it might be Jaiprakash or Bijender Singh (the sitting BJP MP) from Congress and maybe Dushyant Chautala himself or one of his family members. It will be advantage Kuldeep Bishnoi, the younger son of Ch. Bhajan Lal, the man who was the reason for getting in anti defection law probably, but he had another interesting credentials – never to have lost an election
Delhi – North east – Manoj Tiwari was a clear winner and it looked like 7-0 BJP or 6-1 BJP-AAP; having nominated Kanhaiya Kumar somewhere Congress has managed to confine Tiwari ji to his constituency and very frankly the kind of orator Kanhaiya is, he might manage to pull it even
Mandi – the day her house was bulldozed in Mumbai I’d said, BJP gets the candidate for Mandi and it has played out. But will she be able to pull it off for the party? That’s a big question. Had it been any other candidate from Bollywood one could have said definitely but in Kangana’s case one can’t be certain given her track record of taking people head on. And her opponent is late Virbhadra Singh’s son Vikramaditya and only a year back his mother had wrested the seat in bi election
Rae Bareli – I’ve kept it for the last – Varun was bounced off with the idea to contest from this seat against presumptive Congress candidate Priyanka Gandhi but he’s refused to fight against his elder sister and that too in the traditional family seat
Now towards the end if I don’t sum up the seats it seems the write up is incomplete but then I’m constrained this time for two reasons. One – the seat range is in a very wide band of 250 – 320 BJP and a full majority to 350 NDA. No one is talking about 400 anymore and two in almost every write up I’ve covered the break up so it’s looking a bit monotonous to repeat the same
My take on the rumours as to what the probability is – below 250 – zero percent chance; between 250 – 280 probability is 30% and by the BJP standards the party may consider this an underperformance; 280 – 310 the most likely scenario with 50% chance and another 15% for seats between 310 – 325. There is zero to 5% chance of 325 barrier being broken
For Congress the best case scenario is 90 and the worst case scenario is 60 and I’m sure they will not fall below 60 this time. The previous political write ups cover the details. Just my guess works, on ground situation can be a bit different and it will be interesting to see how close I’m to reality and how accurate I can turn out to be

Keep watching out for this space that I will continue to update every week till we are finally over with elections. Will look forward to your opinion and feedback that may help me improve upon my accuracy level. But please don’t tag me a bhakt or a chamcha. I’m NOTA

Once again I reiterate – no politician is going to come in our support so let us simply read the political commentaries with an objective mind rather than applying them as a mud slinging weapon on one another and name calling. Let us only evaluate the outlook rather than spoiling personal relations by trolling one another