In this new show political analyst Amitabh Tiwari discuses about how Modi factor can impact the INDIA opposition alliance.
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00:00 Jai Hind! Namaste viewers. Welcome to the first episode of Elections Simplified.
00:06 I am Amitabh Tiwari, Akka Political Baba and will be hosting the show once a week till the
00:14 general elections. Our world is full of conversations about elections, but most of what we hear is full
00:23 of personal and ideological bias. We are hearing a lot of opinions nowadays which is coming from
00:29 different points of view, which make it hard to tell fact from fiction, truth from manipulation.
00:35 In this era of politics, we get lost trying to figure out what is going on actually. The main
00:43 goal of this show which we are putting out today is to break free from bias and provide
00:49 data-backed electoral analysis. We think that the data can help the way forward cut through the fog
00:57 of uncertainty and false information. The main goal of this show is to use data to make sense
01:06 of the often complicated and confusing world of electoral research for the common man.
01:12 Data, my friends, is not biased. It is not influenced by feelings or political parties,
01:19 by commentators or analysts. As we embark on this journey, remember that we are not trying to
01:26 replace different opinions or discussions. On the contrary, we want to improve these conversations
01:32 by creating a space where views are supported by facts and data. Our objective is to simplify
01:41 electoral analysis through the prism of data. Our aim at Election Simplified is to provide an
01:48 objective assessment based on data and facts. So, let us begin the journey of Election Simplified
01:57 and start the first episode.
01:58 Now friends, who will win the 2020 for general elections is a question in everybody's mind.
02:15 It is a million dollar question. However, what we are all trying to do is to predict the outcome
02:22 of an event which is going to happen in the future and the elections is still 7 to 8 months away.
02:28 That is why if you notice, all the surveys when they are published have this disclaimer,
02:35 "If the elections are held today, then this could be the result." But as you and me know,
02:42 the elections are not going to be held today, they are more than 7 months away,
02:46 of course, unless they are pre-polled. And 7 months is a long time in politics.
02:52 A lot can happen in between. Especially when 12 to 15 percent of the voters finally decide
03:00 who to vote for on the day of polling. We have many friends amongst us who chase us,
03:06 "Arey baba, batao, who is the candidate? Who are you voting for?" etc. And this is a national
03:11 election study carried by CSDS. Another 12 to 15 percent decide just 2 to 3 days before the polling
03:19 and 10 to 12 percent decide after the candidate is announced. And only CSDS says 36 percent decide
03:27 even before the campaign. Which means a large chunk, which is two-thirds almost, 64 to 65 percent
03:35 of the people decide who to vote for very late. And this makes the elections 2024 quite open and
03:43 not a foregone conclusion. So even Access My India says that 43 percent of the people made the final
03:51 decision whom to vote for on the day of polling or a few days ago or after the community meetings
03:58 were held. Which means that there is a very less number of already decided voters, which largely
04:05 consists of hardcore ideologically aligned voters who have made up their mind very early whom to
04:12 vote for. Now the same survey says that there are only 31 percent loyal voters who have already
04:20 decided whom to vote for or who have always voted for the same party. This number is very less.
04:27 Which means 69 percent or roughly 70 percent of the people are not loyal voters in India and they
04:34 have voted for different parties in different elections. Now the top states where this
04:40 percentage of loyal voters is high are Uttarakhand 60 percent, Gujarat 52 percent, Rajasthan 48
04:48 percent, MP and Andhra Pradesh 44 percent each. Even Kerala which has seen a traditional CPM
04:56 versus Congress battle has a high percentage of loyal voters at 37 percent which is higher than
05:03 the national average. These if you see Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, MP, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Gujarat
05:12 these are largely bipolar contest states. Hence the percentage of loyal voters here seems to be
05:20 higher than the national average. This means that there is a large chunk of swing voters or
05:27 neutral voters in India who are the king makers. They vote for different parties in different
05:34 elections and this is what makes the elections quite open and very interesting, exciting as well
05:42 as very unpredictable. Now amongst the late deciders where people decide very late are states
05:52 like Odisha 68 percent, Jharkhand 63 percent, Telangana 57 percent, Maharashtra 56 percent,
06:01 Chhattisgarh 55 percent, Bihar 55 percent and West Bengal 50 percent. These seven states where
06:09 people decide very late account for 193 seats which is almost 35 percent of the Lok Sabha strength.
06:17 So guys, game abhi baaki hai.
06:19 Now who will win 2024? There are two big alliances which are shaping up which will lock horns in 2024.
06:28 The BJP led NDA, National Democratic Alliance of 38 parties and a confederation of 26 parties
06:36 called the INDIA, Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance. The Congress led United
06:44 Progressive Alliance is along with a few regional parties has been now re-branded as INDIA.
06:52 Now let us see what comprises of these NDA and INDIA. NDA primarily consists of the BJP,
07:02 the Shiv Sena which is a faction led by the Eknath Shinde which is now the original
07:07 Shiv Sena as per election commission, the NCP which is a faction led by Ajit Pawar,
07:12 the AIADMK and the Lok Jan Shakti Party, the party of erstwhile late Ram Vilas Baswan
07:20 and both the factions of LJP, the Chacha and the Bhatija faction are with the NDA.
07:27 Now let us see who all are there in INDIA. Primarily Congress, the Nationalist Congress
07:34 Party, the Sharad Pawar faction, the Uddhav Thackeray faction of Shiv Sena,
07:38 Mamata Banerjee s Tridamul Congress, Akhilesh Yadav s Samajwadi Party, Nitish Kumar s Janta
07:46 Dal United, Lalu Yadav s Rashtriya Janta Dal, Arvind Kejriwal s Aam Aadmi Party and the left
07:53 parties primarily consisting of CPM, CPI and others. Now, the seat distribution, the leadership
08:02 and the common minimum program are still sticky points which need to be finalised by the INDIA.
08:07 There is also a block of non-Congress, non-BJP aligned regional parties. These primarily
08:16 consist of the Akali Dal of the Badals in Punjab, KCR s BRS, the Bharatiya Rashtriya Samiti which
08:24 was earlier called the Telangana Rashtriya Samiti, Naveen Patnaik s Biju Janta Dal from Odisha,
08:30 Jagan Reddy s YSR CP and Chandrababu Naidu s Telugu Desam Party.
08:37 Now let us see how many MPs these two blocks have today. The NDA currently has 332 MPs,
08:46 and INDIA 144 MPs. In terms of vote shares, the NDA has 42.9%, so almost 43%,
08:56 while INDIA has 37.5% as shown in the graph below. The non-aligned block, the BJD, YSR CP,
09:06 TDP and Akali Dal have 48 MPs with a vote share of 6.2%. Now, BJP is the clear leader of NDA with
09:16 90% of the seats and vote share. The Congress accounts for almost half of the vote share of
09:22 the INDIA block and 35% of the seats. So, it is clearly the largest party but not a clear leader
09:30 as the regional satraps like Mamata Banerjee, Arvind Kejriwal do not formally accept its
09:36 leadership as of now. The NDA is largely dependent upon the BJP s performance because 90% of the
09:43 seats and vote share are accounted for by the BJP, while INDIA is more representative because
09:51 it has more parties with a bigger chunk of seats and vote share. Now, NDA clearly benefits from
09:58 the leadership of Narendra Modi, while INDIA block benefits from the combined leadership of
10:06 the Gandhis, Nitish Kumar, Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav, Arvind Kejriwal etc.
10:13 In 2019 elections, NDA had won 353 seats with 45% vote share, while the Ostwild UPA led by
10:23 the Congress had won 91 seats with 27% vote share, enjoying a lead of 18%. Now, this 18%
10:32 lead is theoretically reduced to 5-6% only with this new grouping of INDIA block, 43% vs 37.5%.
10:42 In terms of absolute numbers, NDA was leading against UPA by 11 crore votes
10:51 and this has reduced to 3 crore votes, primarily because of this new block of alliance which has
10:59 now been created. However, this difference of 3 crore votes is accounted largely by the non-aligned
11:07 parties, the BJD, Akali Dal, YSRCP and the TDP. So, now who will win 2024 has its roots or in
11:20 the composition or structure of the Lok Sabha. So, let us first try to understand how the Lok
11:27 Sabha is structured. Top 5 states which is UP, Bengal, Bihar, Uttarakhand and Tamil Nadu account
11:38 for 268 seats which is 49% of the Lok Sabha strength of 543 seats. The undivided UP including
11:49 Uttarakhand has 85 seats, undivided Bihar including Jharkhand has 54, Maharashtra has 48,
11:57 West Bengal has 42 and Tamil Nadu has 39 seats. Before the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh,
12:05 even the Andhra states would have been in this list. However, today the political dynamics of
12:13 both these states is fairly different. Telangana's TRS or BRS as it is called now is having almost
12:23 nil presence in Andhra whereas Jagan's YSRCP and Chandrababu Naidu's TDP have a very limited role
12:32 today in the politics of Telangana. Hence, the undivided Andhra Pradesh has not been included
12:39 in this top states list. Any party or alliance needs to sweep 3 to 4 of these states to win the
12:48 Lok Sabha elections or emerge as the single largest party in the Lok Sabha. Now, let us look at the
12:54 history of the last 4 elections and see how these 5 states played an important role in the formation
13:01 of the government. In 2004, the Congress led UPA won 229 seats. 117 of these seats which is 51%
13:11 of its tally came from these 5 states. It swept Bihar, Tamil Nadu and won almost half of Maharashtra.
13:19 In 2009, the UPA won 262 seats. 104 of these seats which is 40% of its tally came from these 5
13:29 states. It won majority seats in Tamil Nadu, Bengal and Maharashtra. At that point of time,
13:36 Mamata Banerjee was in UPA. In both these years, UPA also swept Andhra, the undivided Andhra which
13:44 had 42 seats. This also contributed to its victory. Now, coming to the Modi era. In 2014, NDA won 166
13:54 seats of its 336 tally which is 49% of its tallies from these 5 states. It swept majority seats in
14:04 Bihar, Maharashtra and UP. Now, coming to 2019, the NDA won 353 seats. 180 of these seats which
14:13 is 51% more than half came from these 5 states. It swept again the majority seats in Bihar,
14:21 Maharashtra and UP and also did very well in the state of Bengal. So, these 5 states
14:28 are very important and will decide who wins 2024. We will be discussing each of them in detail,
14:36 devoting one episode each in the future.
14:39 Now, who will win 2024 is also largely dependent upon how the Modi factor plays out.
14:49 Friends, we have heard a lot about the Modi factor. So, what is the Modi factor? The boost
14:54 the BJP gets from Prime Minister Narendra Modi s personal political capital which took the party
15:01 past the finish line in elections over the last few years is often referred to as the Modi factor.
15:08 Can the Modi factor be quantified? Yes. The way to put a number to this is to measure his ability
15:18 to attract voters outside the party s core vote bank and influence them to vote for the BJP.
15:25 We have seen that only 31% of the total voting population are loyal voters. So, 69% of them
15:33 are non-loyal voters who have not been voting for the same party year after year and he is able to
15:39 draw not only the BJP loyal voters but also a large chunk of this non-loyal, non-ideologically
15:46 aligned voters towards the BJP. A CSDS survey in 2014 says or shows that 27% of the respondents
15:56 would not have voted for the BJP if Modi was not the Prime Ministerial candidate.
16:00 That s a huge number. This number increased to 32% in 2019, which means one out of every three
16:08 voters voted for the BJP because of the Prime Minister Modi. And another important element is
16:15 that Modi didn t only fetch votes for the BJP but also for its allies in the last two elections.
16:22 BJP s allies got 20% of their votes in 2014 and 25% in 2019 due to the Modi factor.
16:32 So, can the Modi factor be quantified? How much votes did NDA or BJP get in the last two elections
16:40 because of the Modi factor? According to my research, which is derived from the numbers of
16:46 CSDS, the NDA fetched 5.5 crore votes in 2014 due to the Modi factor. This increased significantly
16:55 to 8.5 crore votes in 2019. And friends, there is a big significance of these numbers. If you recall,
17:03 in 2019, NDA s lead over UPA was 11 crore votes. This means that the 8.5 crore votes
17:12 which the Modi factor fetched the NDA accounted for almost 80% of this lead. So, it can be said
17:21 with quite a lot of certainty that the BJP won handsomely in both 2014 and 2019 largely because
17:30 of the Modi factor. So, why is Modi so popular? Why he is able to draw a lot of votes towards
17:37 the BJP and its allies? See, Modi is a multifaceted personality. He is not only a Hindutva leader,
17:45 he has been able to establish his image as an OBC leader, a champion of the poor,
17:51 a development-oriented leader, a strong administrator, a business-friendly leader,
17:57 a nationalist, a person who will make India Vishwa Guru etc. etc. And this appeals to a
18:04 large array of voting segments. And this quality is perhaps absent in any other leader in the
18:12 political domain or the landscape of today. This works for the BJP well given the fact that a large
18:19 section of the population is not loyal but in fact they are neutral voters like we discussed earlier.
18:26 69% of the Indian populace is a neutral voter. And hence, all these qualities are able to attract
18:34 a large chunk of neutral voters towards the BJP as discussed above.
18:40 Now, the million dollar question is about the durability of the Modi factor.
18:48 Is he still popular? Can he get BJP the same number of votes in 2024 or maybe even more?
18:56 Has he peaked or is his best yet to come? As per many surveys, Modi still remains popular
19:05 in his second term. As per a CSDS survey of May 2023, 43% people want to see him as the
19:14 Prime Minister. This is a marginal drop of 1% compared to 2014. So, he still retains his
19:22 popularity. And why is this important? This is important because elections in India are
19:27 increasingly becoming presidential style, which means a prime ministerial phase versus a prime
19:32 ministerial phase. And the form of the captain of the NDA or the BJP is very important for the BJP.
19:40 Now, let's understand, the vote which a candidate gets consists of three parts.
19:47 One part or one percentage of the votes he gets is because of his own image. The other part is
19:56 because of the party symbol. Anybody contest on a BJP symbol or a Congress symbol from any seat has
20:02 a certain number of votes which will be automatically transferred to the candidate.
20:07 And the third part is because of the state or the national leadership. So, one third votes a
20:13 candidate gets is on account of his own image, one third because of the party symbol and one third
20:19 because of the leadership. The thumb rule is one third each for all these parts. As per Access
20:25 My India exit poll, for 37% of the voters in 2019 elections, the prime ministerial phase was the
20:34 most important consideration when they went out to vote. So, can Modi take BJP past the majority
20:41 mark again on his personal charisma remains to be seen. Can India make the contest local and
20:49 neutralize the strength of the BJP? All of this remains to be seen and only time will tell.
20:58 So, friends, to recap, elections are still 7-8 months away and that's a long time in politics.
21:05 Lok Sabha elections are still quite open as there are a lot of late deciders in India,
21:11 almost 64-65% and there are very few loyal voters in India, only around 31%. The results of the top
21:20 5 states and the durability of the Modi factor could ultimately decide who will win in 2024.
21:29 Thank you, keep safe, see you next week, share your feedback and queries. Namaste.
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