Lok Sabha Election 2014 – My Prediction

Just like most educated Indians, I have been avidly following all those election news, TV opinion polls, analysis on sentiments, geo-political changes etc. One thing I realized is that even those famous psephologists and some of my past idols – like Psephologist Prannoy Roy – aren’t doing a good job with respect to impartially airing their views. There’s a lot of mess on TV and Social media these days that we get to hear/read only twisted facts.

Finally, I decided to do my own state-wise analysis of the current (15th Lok Sabha) positions, changed geographical and political sentiments and analysis on newer parties. I am transferring the final outcome from Excel sheet to this blog post on what I see as the election results of Lok Sabha 2014 from the perspective of only the top 10 parties.

Please note that, I haven’t spent a lot of time on very small states and a change of +/- 5% is likely.

Top 12 Winning Parties of Lok Sabha Election 2014 (Predicted Results)


BJP – 145 – 150
INC – 90 – 95
BSP – ~30
Trinamool Congress – ~22
SP – ~20
AIADMK – ~20
JDU – ~20
CPM – ~18
BJD – ~15
Shivsena – ~10
YSR – ~10
DMK – ~ 8

These parties are likely to be followed by NCP, TDP, TRS etc. In my opinion, AAP is likely to get 4 seats in Delhi and nothing in other states. I was tempted to think about AAP’s chances in Haryana but it is a complicated situation whereby a major shift in vote share may not necessarily get converted into a seat. In other states, I believe AAP will not do any magic and Kejriwal himself may lose on a huge margin.

Big States for BJP and Congress

The biggest state for BJP, in my opinion, would be Madhya Pradesh where the sentiments are very strong following the recent Assembly elections. This should be followed by Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, UP and Karnataka in that order.

For Congress, it is pretty evenly distributed among Maharashtra, UP, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Tamil Nadu and other smaller states.

Hung Parliament?

Now that, the BJP is likely to be single largest party and with their allies (NDA) they could get around 200 seats, it is highly likely to be a bad situation post this elections. Further, even after securing 200+ seats on their own, the current UPA II government couldn’t do much. So what would be the state of the next government if BJP doesn’t get at least 200 on their own?

Unfortunately, things don’t look all that good for India. It’s time we embraced a Two-Party political system with all regional parties forced to dismantle and align to two major national parties.

Disclaimer

I am not a Modi, Kejriwal or Rahul fan nor do I belong to any of the above parties. Further, I was raised in a Marxist family and have been influenced by socialist principles. However, I never voted based on the party flag but went with individuals whom I thought are good and capable. I will be doing the same for this election as well.

(I wouldn’t be encouraging a discussion on this post. It is maintained only to assess myself in terms of my analytical capabilities. Further, I am doing it more as a pastime post my retirement 🙂 )

Anti-Nepotism Online Campaign for Loksabha Election 2014

Friends,
We are living in a Democratic country. Democracy provides you the freedom and power to elect the representatives who can make decisions on our behalf in order to take this country forward.

Today, the eligibility of candidates contesting for parliament or state assembly elections is decided based on too basic parameters such as citizenship status, minimum age, criminal conviction status etc. From time to time, the educated citizens in this country have asked for stricter norms such as minimum educational qualifications, upper age bar and so on. However, going by the constitutional rights of the citizens of India, it may not be practical to implement such amendments in the near future.

nepotism in india

Yet another virus that is affecting the democratic process and progress of this country is Nepotism in politics. Favourism granted to the relatives of family members of politicians has reached such a pathetic state where several members of the same family get to contest a particular election (E.g. Three members of the Paswan family contest the forthcoming Loksabha elections). This is so easily done and manipulated by the crooked politicians because the people have no say in deciding who can contest even before deciding whom to vote for. Further, Nepotism is one of the reasons why most of these politicians and their families turn corrupt.

While constitutional changes or even an Anti-Nepotism bill may be close to impossible, we as voters always have the chance to vote out those who run politics as a family business. We have to decide whether 20 or 30 families out of the millions in this country can continue to play with our future, just because they get to contest and win elections by playing vote bank politics, caste-regional politics and other inherited means.

So during the forthcoming Loksabha election, let me request my fellow citizens to do the following.

1. First, enroll yourself in the Voters list and please Do vote on the election day.

2. If you know of any candidate who got a ticket by Nepotistic means, please alert voters and fellow citizens by word of mouth, social media shares etc to spread awareness. There are already many familiar names out there ( Gandhis, Gowdas, Yadavs, Paswans, Karnunanidhis etc) but there may be a lot more that we don’t know; So let us spread awareness by all possible means.

3. Do not vote for Nepotists – especially who haven’t done anything at all for the social well-being or progress of the nation even at his/her lowest capacities prior to this election. Even if they have done something in the past, if you believe that there could have been a better candidate, reject them outright. Please think beyond your political views for once.

4. If you don’t find a suitable candidate in your constituency, please use the ‘Reject all candidates’ button. Let us hope this new mechanism introduced this year is going to work and make things better in the future.

Please share this note with your friends and contacts. Let us send this message loud and clear and work towards a cleaner and truly democratic election process. While for every election, we try to vote and elect people based on our best judgment, let us try to make Anti-Nepotism as the theme for this Loksabha election. Because, uprooting nepotism is one of the key steps towards fighting corruption!

The link to the Facebook Online Campaign is below:
Anti-Nepotism Online Campaign for Loksabha Election 2014 – Facebook link

Thank you,
An Indian Citizen