“Team Idea of India” changing horses as BJP leads in Uttar Pradesh?

Not too surprisingly, I have received a bunch of comments asking me to give my analysis of Uttar Pradesh so far. First of all, I am touched by the faith my readers have in me. But I am also amused and I must point out that I am just a guy with a keyboard and a screen. I don’t have really have any “sources” who can give me exit, nowadays generally renamed as “ground reports” to satisfy the ego of a power mad Election Commission. I have to go with the mood on social media and the “shifts” that I have noticed in the tweets of the seculars  from mainstream media.

So, here is what I gathered. It’s my impression and yours may be different. I believe that BJP has done quite well in Phase 1, though not up to its hopes, possibly because of the splitting of the Jat vote. However, in Phases 2 and 3 in the Yadav heartland, the SP has performed really really badly. Some of this can definitely attributed to the communal violence in Bijnor on Feb 10 and a lot of this probably has to do with Shivpal Yadav, who has tried to sabotage his nephew. Uttar Pradesh is a massive state and Akhilesh effectively formed a new party a little over 2 weeks before the election. There was bound to be rampant ineffectiveness in the organization. Worse, many of the booth workers were probably Shivpal’s men who would deliberately sabotage his party.

This has left the idea of India brigade deeply deeply worried. Sometimes you can observe  (and enjoy) their creeping desperation almost in real time.

From the big Akhilesh wave of a week ago, they are shy of giving him even a 51% chance. But what happens to this same journo just a few hours after this tweet is simply precious.

Funny meltdown this. No clue at all? I remind you that this person has been smugly predicting elections for months, spewing his “Jan ki baat” in the Navbharat Times in column after column. Look, dear NBT, this is what you got for your money. You got someone who admits he has “no clue at all” 🙂

And don’t forget to notice the quoted tweet of Shivam Vij, another secular slave of the dynasty. “Difficult to read” means things are not going their way. Everyone knows that much.

Here’s the mood on social media at least as far as I see it :

RW supporters : gung ho!

Seculars : Circumspect and nervous, second guessing themselves repeatedly.

The only logical conclusion is that the secular brigade from MSM, which is talking to politicians and likely also has access to exit poll data, is not getting the information it would like to hear. You can see Sharat Pradhan and the Aaj Tak crew openly talking about a change in Akhilesh’s manner ever since phases 2 and 3.

Remember guys, that’s Aaj Tak. My guess is that they have access to Axis exit poll data. Meanwhile, Rajdeep has been quite upfront in admitting that BJP is winning Uttar Pradesh.

It’s also massively likely that Rajdeep has access to Axis poll data.

Another symptom of nervousness is when the “idea of India” looks to change horses. When journos get disturbing information, they tend to go to their comforting “safe place” of the late 1990s. And they come up with the age old, outdated “wisdom” of bleating about how “BSP is getting underestimated”. When they bring up this old bogey, like Bhupendra Chaubey did yesterday, you should read it as a collapse of confidence.

When even Samajwadi Times (also called ET) reporters start hedging their bets, it’s time for Akhilesh to start worrying.

Didn’t I tell you that BSP is the emotional safe space for secular journalists? When they see defeat written large on the wall, their favorite thing to do is convince themselves that there is a silent BSP wave 🙂

The secular media changing horses midway is excellent news from the BJP point of view. It will add to the confusion of the M voter. And that serves the M voter right because the M voter isn’t voting for progress or hope, but merely with a negative agenda to defeat one specific party.

The BJP this time around has done an excellent job of creating “hawa”, something that was sorely missing during Bihar. Maybe this “hawa” does not match the situation on the ground. Who knows? But the importance of “hawa” is that it often turns into a self fulfilling prophecy.

Like almost all RW, I also regularly follow the “ground assessments” of Dr. Praveen Patil. And I won’t lie : I am thrilled by his findings so far. However, it is very important not to take the findings of any one exit … sorry … ground assessment too seriously. You have to look at all available exit … sorry… ground assessments and only take whatever is the consensus view. Thus far, India Behind the Lens (IBTL) seems to have findings that match Dr. Patil. This is different from Bihar, where IBTL and 543 had findings that disagreed with each other. There are other people too. Can’t elaborate on this out of fear. After all, I live in a democracy. We don’t have a right to free speech.

Here you may ask a valid question : why should we believe you Chaiwallah? How do we know you are not as clueless as a dumb journo?

Good question. The answer is that I am not a journo or a pollster. I don’t get paid for my political insights.  I don’t claim to have professional expertise in predicting elections. I am just a guy with a keyboard and a screen who enjoys talking to friends 🙂