BJP might get a rude shock, says Yogendra Yadav

On solid wicket in urban areas, but semi-urban centres and villages might spring a surprise

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) could be in for a rude shock in the Gujarat Assembly elections, said noted political scientist Yogendra Yadav on Wednesday — a day before the last phase of voting in the state.

“There was a sharp swing against the BJP in the past few weeks,” and he said, adding: “Unless the trend is dramatically reversed, surveys lead to the same conclusion — defeat for the BJP.”

Yadav, a leader of the political organisation Swaraj Abhiyan with nearly two decades of experience as a psephologist, had based his projections on the data collected in three surveys since August by CSDSABP. He said the results if the Gujarat polls could be subdivided between urban, semiurban, and rural areas.

Polling will be held for 93 seats on Thursday. The first phase of polling was held on December 9 for 89 of the 182 seats in the Assembly. The counting of votes is on December 18. Exit polls are will be in after voting ends.

In a tweet, Yadav said the BJP was “on a solid wicket” in the 39 urban seats. “It can’t lose more than 10 seats [in urban areas].” In semiurban areas, where it now has 36 seats, it might lose half.

Yadav forecast that the BJP faced a “steady downhill” in the 98 rural seats, where it had trailed the Congress in 2012 Assembly polls, and could now face a rout.

He told this newspaper that he was no longer in the business of election forecasting. “That was my previous birth. Nor have I the desire to compete with pollsters and journalists, who have access to better technology and information. It isn’t also about me saying on the counting day that I was right. But, given the very loud silence (around election forecast and coverage), and in the larger public interest, someone needed to say it.”

He said it seemed to him that all observers — journalists, pollsters and other analysts — were sitting with evidence that pointed in one direction. “For various reasons, they were not putting all that evidence together, which pointed to the most obvious conclusion. That is why I decided to put it in the public domain.”

Yadav forecast that the BJP faced a “steady downhill” in the 98 rural seats, where it had trailed the Congress in 2012 Assembly polls, and could now face a rout