Will Modi lose the Prime Ministership in 2019?
Modi Supporters are beginning to feel nervous about this election while Opposition supporters are feeling more confident.
On our prediction platform, In March, 61% of BJP supporters expected BJP to win 286 or more seats. That has fallen to 54% in April
In March, the average of all BJP supporters prediction for BJP averaged at 295 seats. In April so far it is down to 272
In April, the % of predictors (all parties) predicting BJP will win 31 or more seats in Uttar Pradesh is just 56%, It was 78% in March
Yesterday an article by Aditya Menon in Quint alluded to declining approval ratings of Prime Minister Modi
The top predictor on CrowdWisdom is predicting about 175 seats for BJP.
Let us look at the forecasts State by state by considering two public sources – Opinion Polls (Worst case and Average scenarios in 2019) and Google Trends (Month on Month Trends)
Bihar
2019 April Opinion Poll Worst Case Scenario is 29.
On Google Trends, the Gap between BJP+JD(U) versus Congress+RJD was 58 in 2014. This has crashed to 22 in 2019. These kinds of falls have never turned out well as we saw in the elections in Nov-December. So let us go with the worst case scenario of 29 seats for NDA
Madhya Pradesh
2019 Opinion Poll Worst Case Scenario is 21.
On Google Trends, the Gap between BJP versus Congress was 16 in 2014. This has reduced to 8 in 2019. This gap is much better than the 2018 assembly election where Congress was actually ahead. That would have led to 16 seats for BJP. However given an improved performance, let us go with the worst case scenario of 21
Rajasthan
2019 Opinion Poll Worst Case Scenario is 17.
On Google Trends, the Gap between BJP versus Congress was 13 in 2014. It is the same in 2019. This gap is much better than the 2018 assembly election where Congress was actually ahead. Therefore, 12 seems to be quite pessimistic. Let us go with average which is 19
Chhattisgarh
2019 Opinion Poll Worst Case Scenario is 3.
On Google Trends, the Gap between BJP versus Congress was 29 in 2014. It is 24 in 2019. This gap is much better than the 2018 assembly election where Congress was actually ahead. Therefore, 3 seems to be pessimistic. The average for BJP is 4 which appears more likely
Maharashtra
2019 Opinion Poll Worst Case Scenario is 34
On Google Trends, the Gap between NDA versus UPA was 55 in 2014. It is 42 in 2019. This is a significant fall. So let us go with the worst case scenario of 34
Gujarat
2019 Opinion Poll Worst Case Scenario is 24
On Google Trends, the Gap between BJP versus Congress was 48 in 2014. It is 25 in 2019. This is a significant fall. So let us go with the worst case scenario of 24
Karnataka
2019 Opinion Poll Worst Case Scenario is 16
On Google Trends, the Gap between BJP versus Congress was 34 in 2014. It is 25 in 2019 once Congress and Janata Dal are combined. This is a significant fall. So let us go with the worst case scenario of 16
Uttar Pradesh
2019 Opinion Poll Worst Case Scenario is 36
On Google Trends, the Gap between BJP versus SP was 47 in 2014. It is 45 in 2019 once SP and BSP are combined. This is not a significant fall. So let us go with the average case scenario of 41 seats
Jharkhand
2019 Opinion Poll Worst Case Scenario is 9
On Google Trends, the Gap between BJP versus Congress was 45 in 2014. It is 56 in 2019 This is actually an improvement. So let us go with the best case scenario of 11 seats
All the above States add upto 199 Seats for the NDA in 2019. They added upto 264 seats in 2014. That is a fall of Almost 66 seats.
Let us now consider the average scenarios of a few other Pivotal States
Assam, Bengal, Odisha, Delhi, Uttaranchal, Himachal and Haryana
The Average scenario for NDA in these States is: 52 Seats.
This takes the NDA Tally to 251 Seats
That leaves us with rest of North East, Parts of North and Most of South India, where the average opinion poll forecast is 21 seats for the NDA.
That takes the NDA Tally alone to 272 Seats. This is close to our Prediction Trading Platform forecast where the most Traded prediction is 211 and 225 for BJP which translates to 245 to 260 seats for the NDA. Click here to Trade now
But there are some weak links, for example Bihar shows significant deterioration in Google Trends which is not visible in the opinion polls, same with Gujarat and Maharashtra. Tamil Nadu too follows the same trend. These few states could be over stating the NDA prediction by 20-30 seats
Further, this is only middle of April, further deterioration could lead to further losses in the NDA.
Let us assume a worst case scenario where the NDA ends up at 230 instead of 272 as projected by us.
With YSRCP (Min 15 seats) in the bag and TRS, BJD and even NCP (all 3 about 40 seats) likely to abstain, the NDA could still end up with the 250 that will enable them to win Confidence of the house.
So even the worst case scenario while uncomfortable does not look terrible for the NDA. So the odds of PM Modi returning as PM are quite high.
However, there can be another worst case scenario. BJP below 200 seats can present a very complicated situation of Shiv Sena and JD(U) defecting and projecting someone like Mayawati or KCR as the Prime Minister. Practically speaking this would be extremely difficult but one should not rule this out completely
In Sum, the probability of PM returning as PM is quite HIGH. However, NDA returning to power with a wafer thin majority and support from too many unreliable partners is also quite HIGH. The probability of NDA partners defecting seems to be quite low but not improbable.
This is turning out to be quite an exciting election where small mistakes in the next few weeks could determine whether NDA is in comfortable position or in the difficult situation of managing a huge and complex coalition.
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