Since 1998, I have been a keen student of Indian politics.

2011-12 was the period in Indian politics when, with the advent of social media & the beginnings of irrelevance of mainstream media, the Indian public actually started seeing a wide array of opinions on Indian politics.

In January 2013, I started constructing my own conceptual understanding of the unique nature of Indian politics, maintaining a broad timeline of political events and the ‘chatter’ about it both on MSM & SM.

I got 2014 absolutely right, even though at that stage, I was nowhere close to understanding the technicalities of ‘key issues’, ‘weightage of key issues’ and the resulting ‘vote-share’ & ‘seat-share’ distillation.

Over the next 4 years, my understanding got better, enough for me to be able to start estimating seats in elections in India from 2017 onwards.

Apart from Chhatisgarh (which I got completely wrong), I have not really been majorly off the mark in any of the other elections.

So, In May 2018 I thought of trying out my estimation nationally.

In May 2018 I had estimated 286 seats for the BJP. The same was tweaked over the voting & pre-voting periods of Feb-May 2019 to 273. Despite my not-so-strong understanding of South Indian politics, I decided to hazard a estimate for those seats too, taking the BJP + allies estimation to 341.

Overall, I think I did well 😁😁😁

 

 

I low-balled the BJP seats in the ‘sweep’ states of 2014 and in Bengal but highballed them in the new bastions of Andhra & TN. Overall, am happy with my approach. It gives me good confidence to continue to be a student of Indian Politics.

I encourage all those keen to study Indian politics and apply your study. Not only will it give you a much deeper understanding of India but it will also enhance both your macro & micro thinking!!!