India

[Georg Ebner]

According to this opinionPoll the UPA would once again get 2/3 (64/97) from the Dravida.

[ibfc]

Jul 30, 2022 21:16:57 GMT Georg Ebner said:

Jul 30, 2022 18:02:42 GMT ibfc said:

They are also doing state assembly polls. A lot are captured in this thread. A few seem dubious especially Chattisgarh.

Wow - that's really a goldMine!
Do You rate WB as realistic? In their LS-proJection they had NDA losing ground.
INC in Punjab would also be something.
Maharastra being very interesting, of course: The deFection of SHS-parts was obviously (also) a reAction to NCP's rise. As ignorant foreigner i had expected the Thackeray-SHS to have the upperHand. 

I think the assembly polls seem generally dubious. Bengal, Himachal, Jharkhand, Bihar all seem doubtful. But Punjab I think is directionally correct. Congress strength came there from feudals who wanted to be in good books of Delhi and Hindus who didn't like the BJP Akali alliance. Neither situation is true anymore.

[Georg Ebner]

Bihar-alliances over time, based on the overView by an user from another forum:

Everything clear?
Confusing carousel.

[ibfc]

The caravan begins again with Himachal Pradesh going to the polls on 12 November. However results will be announced only on 8th December once Gujarat elections are also done (Himachal elections are held a couple of weeks earlier than strictly required as a few of the mountain constituencies become inaccessible post the second week of November). The state currently has a BJP government and has alternatively elected INC and BJP governments since 1985 when Raja Virbhadra Singh of the INC led the INC to a second term. In 1990, Shanta Kumar led the BJP to a win while Virbhadra led the congress to a win in 1993 (the BJP government had been dismissed mid term due to the Babri Masjid demolition).

The BJP would dump Shanta Kumar as its leader primarily in the mid 90a and kick him upstairs to the Centre primarily on the advice of its new General Secretary for the Northern states, one Narendra Modi who felt the BJP needed a Rajput face to take on Virbhadra Singh (Shanta is a Brahmin). Modi’s choice was Prem Kumar Dhumal, a former college professor who would form a coalition government in the state with the splinter Himachal Vikas Congress in 1998. Virbhadra would come back to power in 2002, be ousted by Dhumal in 2007 and win again in 2012. 2017 saw a change in pattern as Dhumal lost his own seat while the BJP took power in the state. As a lot of other senior leaders also lost, a relatively obscure leader, Jai Ram Thakur became the first ever CM from the traditional swing district of Mandi. Dhumal’s loss is widely attributed to Modi and Amit shah’s insistence that he switch from his sitting seat of Hamirpur and move to neighbouring Sujanpur to take on a formal underling turned rival who had won the seat in 2012. Dhumal duly lost much to the dismay of himself and the people of Sujanpur. Dhumal, now 79 has been sulking since then though he’s been well looked after by his old friend. His younger son, Anurag has represented Hamirpur Lok Sabha since 2007 and is now the union minister for Sports while elder son Arun was the Treasurer of the BCCI and has recently been elected the Chairman of the Governing Council of the IPL.

On the other side Virbhadra Singh passed away last year at the age of 87 and the Congress is now ostensibly led by his wife, Maharani Pratibha Singh. However, the Gandhis seem to be backing the anti Virbhadra faction that had been sidelined for so long and this is leading to chaos. As per polls BJP might buck the trend and come back to power though it’s not sure that Jai Ram will continue even in that case. The other main contender for CMship is BJP national president (and practical No 4 in the party nationally), Jagat Prakash Nadda. His Presidency is coming to an end early next year and it’s possible that he’ll be sent back home instead of given another term. I, for one would welcome that.

Also interesting to point out that Himachal gave the highest vote share to the BJP of all states in 2019 and the BJP led in every single assembly constituency in the state.

My gut feeling is the BJP will pull it off narrowly but a lot will depend on candidate selection in the final lap as the seats are very small and candidates matter a lot more in assembly electors here than in other places.

[Georg Ebner]

Gujarat 2017:

[The Bishop]

Presumably the white bit is desert and has (almost) no inhabitants?

[Sibboleth]

It's the Rann of Kutch.

[carlton43]

Dec 7, 2022 11:56:59 GMT Sibboleth said:

It's the Rann of Kutch.

Happily, a complaint that may now be treated with an ointment.

[Georg Ebner]

Himachal Pradesh 2017:

[Georg Ebner]

Gujarat turned - as expected - into a BJP-landeSlide (but bigger than anticipated: of 182 not less than 156; 17 INC, 5 AAP, 4 others).

In Himachal Pradesh, though, where nearly all national pollsters had BJP ahead, INC won on antiIncumbency (of 68 40, BJP 25, others 3).

[Georg Ebner]

Delhi had municipal elections, where the BJP gained 3% and received 39.1% - 0.5% more than in the LA-election 2020 -, but was nevertheless defeated by its enemies coalescing around AAP (+16%; INC -9.5%).

[ibfc]

While I should be giving details on all of these elections, I am still recovering from the result in Himachal as I actively worked there. Will get around to it in a few days.

[ibfc]

Former Congress state chief Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu is the new CM of HP while LoP in the previous assembly, Mukesh Agnihotri is the Deputy CM. Sukhu represents Nadaun seat in Hamirpur district while Agnihotri represents Haroli in neighbouring Una. So a very heavily lower Himachal dominated government. The next moves of Pratibha Singh and her son Vikramaditya would now need to be watched closely.

As for Gujarat, Bhupendra Patel is retained after the landslide win which was topped up by his own Assadesque vote share of 82.96% in his Ghatlodia seat in the Western exurbs of Ahmedabad.

[Georg Ebner]

Chief Ministers:

With HP in its fold now the INC will have at least 1 CM in 1 year.

[ibfc]

Honestly, there’s no real prospect of the INC losing Chhattisgarh and they are 65-35 to form a government in Karnataka and 35-65 in Madhya Pradesh.

[Georg Ebner]

Dec 12, 2022 13:57:51 GMT ibfc said:

Honestly, there’s no real prospect of the INC losing Chhattisgarh and they are 65-35 to form a government in Karnataka and 35-65 in Madhya Pradesh.

Ah, thanks - i totally forgot the election in Karnataka. And expected some chance for the BJP in Chhattisgarh - interesting!

[ibfc]

The first state assembly elections of 2023 will be held in February with Tripura going to the polls on 16 February followed by Meghalaya and Nagaland on 27 February. The results will be declared on 2 March. All three are small north eastern states with Meghalaya and Nagaland being two of India’s three Christian majority states. Tripura is currently ruled by the BJP while Nagaland is ruled by a coalition of the Naga Nationalist NDPP and the BJP. Anti Gandhi family North Eastern stalwart, late P A Sangma’s NPP rules Meghalaya backed by a hotch potch of regional parties and the BJP.

The BJP is fighting Tripura in alliance with the Tripuri nationalist IPFT (Indigenous Patriotic Front of Tripura) against an alliance of the CPM and Congress and a third front led by the TIPRA. TIPRA is the personal vehicle of Pradyot Deb Burman the titular ruler of Tripura and it is expected to sweep the 20 Tripuri seats while the contest in the 40 Bengali majority seats will be between the BJP and CPM Congress alliance.

Nagaland will see a straight fight between the NDPP BJP alliance and the former’s parent party the Naga People’s Front. Meghalaya will see a multi cornered fight with the government parties fighting independently against the Congress as well as the Trinamool Congress which has acquired a huge number of Congress MLAs over the past year. As ever, the divide between the Garo Hills and the Khasi- Jaintia hills will be crucial.

While all these states have very interesting electoral histories, I don’t think I’ll have the time to post in more detail on this. Please do let me know if anybody has specific questions and will be happy to try and answer.

[minionofmidas]

Much more interested in indepth pre-campaign coverage of Karnataka.

[ibfc]

Feb 1, 2023 15:47:12 GMT minionofmidas said:

Much more interested in indepth pre-campaign coverage of Karnataka.

So am I. Literally doing a seat by seat daily . Will be trying to put a seat by seat preview before the results.

[Georg Ebner]

Counting will begin soonly.
I am no inSider, but at least i have collected the exitPolls here:

drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jFZ1O1SuSj6_Wwg5CjjokLz3Zl-B4f2D?usp=share_link