Monday, 17 March 2014

India Opinion Polls 2014 - Uttar Pradesh

Previous Election Results:

Voters in UP are looking desperate for someone to pull them out of  BIMARU tag. And for this they responded overwhelmingly in favour of Rahul Gandhi in 2009 and Akhilesh Yadav in 2012. This desperation is shown in the large swings of vote share as well as seat share in these two elections. In 2009, Rahul Gandhi's campaign in favor of development cut much ice and the voters gave them 21 seats with a vote share of 18%. Similarly in the assembly polls of 2012 the SP increased its vote share to its highest 29.15 per cent of total votes polled, up from 25.43 per cent, helping to to raise the party tally from 97 last time to a record 224. 

A similar trend is going to be set in 2014, but this time the voter is looking towards the newest promise of change - Narendra Modi. Opinion polls are predicting a vote % increase from 10-15% and that looks like a possibility this time around. No doubt, Rajnath Singh's astute leadership and Narendra Modi's charisma is working here definitely amongst the voters who were increasingly earlier moving away from the party, election after election. The emergence of AAP is going to play a critical role in the election, the SP and BSP would definitely try and hold on to their caste and communal bases, while the Congress + RLD already looks like a spent force.

2014 prediction:
The BJP which managed to get only 15% votes in 2012 elections would resurrect and gain an astounding 12% votes to get a share of 27% in 2014.

The BSP, a party that cannot be written off in this state would loose a little from 26% in 2012 elections to 23% in 2014. 

The SP, which was at its highest vote share in 2012 assembly elections has lost the script within 2 years of coming to power. Owing to high amount of lawlessness compounded with the mishandling of the Muzzaffarnagar riots, the party looks to see a mass erosion in the Muslim vote share. The overall vote share is going to come down from 29% to 22%.

The Congress and the RLD are looking like aged and tired already, and Rahul Gandhi magic would not work owing to high corruption. The Congress is going to loose 1/3rd of its voters of 2009 and come down to 12% in 2014. Along with RLD, the vote share is estimated to be 16%.

The AAP is gaining, and mostly from the lost Congress share in urban areas and the SP's Muslim vote bank in the hinterlands. The vote share of the party here is going to be a healthy 6%.

In such a 5 cornered contest, it is the most difficult to predict using vote shares. Hence we have used a new but more sound logic this time. Given the Modi wave, BJP will win all seats (in numbers) where it came either first or second in 2009. Given the fact that their vote share is going to increase by 12%, this is a fair possibility. As a result, they are likely to gain from all other 3 - SP, BSP and Congress. The AAP, we see is going to win in areas closer to NCR only, though they would dent the secular votes in almost all urban centers.

The final tally would be:



Party
2009
2014
BJP
10
34
BSP
20
17
INC
21
5
RLD
5
2
SP
23
20
AAP
0
2

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