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Race shows no clear electoral trend

The UPA is the frontrunner but none of the contending fronts has a easy route to power, says Yogendra Yadav

Both the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) appear to have missed their best chance to form the government. The UPA is still the frontrunner, and has more than one complicated route open to it; the NDA has, if it is lucky, only one rather narrow route. And, a Third Front government now looks the second most probable outcome of the Lok Sabha race.

These are the findings of a nationwide AC Nielsen pre-poll survey of some 50,000 voters spread across most of the States, released by Star News (as reported in the programme though the methodological details were not available). The sample size and the credible track record of the professional agency require that we take this barometer seriously. These findings need to be interpreted with those of an earlier nationwide survey released by CNN-IBN. That survey, conducted by the CSDS, had a smaller but more randomized sample spread over 23 States. (I should mention here that I am with the CSDS and have no relationship with AC Nielsen.)

But, first a clarification. Of late, we have seen sharp erosion in public confidence in poll surveys, largely because they were used to do more than they could. Yet, the fact remains that carefully conducted professional sample surveys remain the best guide to trends and patterns about voter preference. The problem isn’t that pollsters lack knowledge; it’s just that pollsters don’t know what they don’t know. Polls are the best guide to the direction in which the electoral wind is blowing. They are not always very reliable in forecasting the exact number of seats.

The overall picture of the voters’ mood and the Statewise trends in both these surveys are not too dissimilar. The AC Nielsen survey projected 257 seats for the UPA (227 seats excluding the SP), 185 for the NDA and 96 for the Third Front in the second week of March (when the survey was carried out). The CSDS survey found the UPA was 7 percentage points ahead of the NDA in terms of its vote share (36 per cent as against 29 per cent) in mid-January. When these Statewise vote shares were converted into seats by statistician Professor Rajeeva Karandikar, he projected 215-235 for the UPA, 165-185 for the NDA and 12-150 for the others — (including the Samajwadi Party (SP), the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the Left, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK).

An easy way of keeping tabs on how the States stack up is to think of them as blocs or baskets. First of all, there is the northwestern bloc (Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and Chandigarh). The small gains and losses for the two major alliances (gains for the Congress in Punjab vs. losses in Haryana; possible gains in Uttaranchal vs. possible losses in Himachal Pradesh) are likely to cancel each other out in this group.

Similarly, the 76-seat basket in the West (Maharashtra, Gujarat, Goa and two Union Territories) is also balanced: possible gains for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Gujarat are likely to be evened out by small losses in Maharashtra.

In this election, one could also think of the three BJP-ruled States of Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh as another basket. The BJP is likely to do very well here, but there is not much scope to improve on 2004: small gains in Karnataka are likely to be offset by minor losses in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

The fourth basket would include Jharkhand and Assam (plus the northeastern hill States) where the NDA can make significant gains. This could, however, be wiped out in Orissa. These four baskets together account for about half of the Lok Sabha seats. They will no doubt see some ups and downs but all these changes are likely to cancel one another.

That leaves us with seven 3D (double-digit damage) States: Rajasthan, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Each of these States can lead to a net gain or loss or more than 10 seats for any of the major players compared 2004. Although one can guess in which way the electoral wind will blow, it is as yet difficult to estimate the exact gains and losses in these States. The real battle for power in the next seven weeks will be fought in the 286 seats of these seven States.

The UPA’s safest route to power would have been an alliance with the SP in Uttar Pradesh and a bid to maximise its gains from Kerala, West Bengal and Rajasthan in such a way as to balance its losses in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar. The Congress and its pre-poll allies could then have hoped for a combined tally of around 250, thus bringing them within striking distance of a majority. But the failure of alliance talks in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have put paid to that. Similarly, the Orissa fiasco for the NDA appears to have put paid to its best chance of improving upon its 2004 tally of 189 and a fresh NDA-led government.

The best that the UPA can now do is to ensure that its losses in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are limited and made up by gains in Kerala, Rajasthan and West Bengal. If the RJD-LJP combine in Bihar and SP in Uttar Pradesh retains a decent share of seats, that provides one possible path to the UPA to forge a majority. Otherwise, it has to go back to the Left or look for new allies like the AIADMK and JD (U).

The NDA has only one very narrow path to power. It must try for a net gain among the four balanced baskets, try to maximise gains in Bihar, cut its losses in Rajasthan and simultaneously hope that its ex-allies do well in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, and that they join to it after the elections. Compared to these, the ‘third front’ scenario appears less implausible. Many conditions would need to be fulfilled if the Third Front were to occupy the driver’s seat. The SP and the RJD-LJP combine should support it; AIADMK and the TDP must do well; and Left must notch up around 40 seats.

All in all, there is no straight and easy route to power. But this was never going to be that kind of an election.

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