Ahmedabad, 27 August 2012

This is the seventh article of JP’s ‘Gujarat Election 2012′ series on DeshGujarat. In this series, the first article was about the possible election schedule, the second article made the point that Gujarat elections in 2012 are incomparable with Gujarat assembly elections of the past. The third article was about abolished seats. The fourth article was about newly added seats. The fifth article was about changes in the reserved seats for SC/STs and its impacts over political career of RC Faldu, Nitin Patel, Pradipsinh Jadeja and others. In the sixth article I shared the final delimitation order with some historical background.

In the first season of this series, I tried to cover the subject of new delimitation as widely as possible. In the second article of this series I clearly stated that because of the new delimitation effect, the elections of Gujarat assembly in 2012 shall be incomparable with any other assembly elections in the past.

Fine, but there’s some scope of comparison, when you look at the results of Lok Sabha elections 2009.

The elections of Lok Sabha in 2009 were held as per the new delimitation order. Every Lok Sabha seat contains several assembly seat areas, and in detailed document of results, one can easily get a detailed assembly seat wise picture.

There’s a difference between 2009 and 2012. There’s a difference between Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections. There’s a difference between a Lok Sabha candidate and a Vidhan Sabha candidate. There’s a difference between LK Advani for PM and Narendra Modi for CM campaigns.

Yes, but having said that, I must say that Lok Sabha results at least show us a clear picture of party wise committed number of votes in each of the assembly seat area.

And following this, when we look at the 2009 Lok Sabha poll results of Gujarat, two conclusions are; (1) BJP still was the no.1 party in Gujarat in 2009 and (2) Congress was unavoidable and a formidable second force.

As per the details of the 2009 Lok Sabha results, Congress won more votes than their nearest rival the BJP on 75-80 seats. This figure was higher compared to the Congress’s strength in the assembly which is between 50-60. It should be mentioned that 91 seats is the majority mark to capture power in Gujarat. BJP was at around 105 seats – down from its current strength in the assembly at around 120.

As I said before, predicting assembly poll results on the basis of Lok Sabha results is a faulty practice(I will throw more light on this in my next article in this series). But there’s no doubt either that Lok Sabha results provide at least some idea about the standing of the parties.

Both the BJP and the Congress have prepared detailed reports on the basis of Lok Sabha results and have figured out the booth wise picture. The BJP has marked the booths into A,B,C,D & E categories. Booths under ‘A’ category are the strongest for the party while booths under ‘E’ category are the weakest. Congress too has figured out where its position is stronger than the BJP and where it is weak. While the BJP is trying to convert its weak areas into stronger ones, Congress party on the other hand is focusing solely on its strong areas and also on narrow gap pockets. Congress leaders know that their weak areas (the urban ones) need no attention because they are too loyal to the BJP and really hard to convert.

In the last few months, I have constantly observed the Congress party’s extra-activeness. They seem rather too confident of winning the Gujarat elections this time, not only in public, but even in their closed door meetings. Their oxygen, or let’s say their energy drink are the 2009 results. As I said, in the 2009 Lok Sabha results the BJP was 15 seats above the majority mark (in the assembly), but the Gujarat Congress believes that if it could get 77 seats in 2009, it can certainly get 14-15 more seats by employing extra efforts and sustained hard work in 2012 and can touch the majority mark this way. Congress men believe that Gujarat is not an impossible task for them. So-called Keshubhai Patel factor, poor monsoons, good response to ghar nu ghar scheme, anti-government mood in government employees etc. adds more energy to Congress’s dreams.

But is the Gujarat Congress’s energy drink actually a mirage? Read the next article of this series.