Close campaigns, clear winners?

The verdict is also about how elections results are predicted

The results of the Gujarat assembly election will be out today. Exit polls give the election to the BJP, which has governed the state for 22 years. According to various polls, the BJP is expected to win between 99 and 146 seats in the 182-member assembly; and the Congress between 36 and 82. Such polls have been known to get things wrong in the past. In a first past the post system such as the one India uses, it is difficult to translate vote share (which is what opinion polls measure) into seat share. Indeed, the better the conversion algorithm in use, the higher the chances of the polling agency getting it right.

While some agencies did get the general direction of the verdict right in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections earlier this year, not one was able to predict the magnitude of the BJP’S landslide win. That was in a state where the vote share was split largely between three groupings. In Gujarat, the battle is effectively between the BJP and the Congress, and many analysts expect it to be a close election (although the conviction of some has waned a bit after the exit polls came out). On paper, it should be: the BJP has ruled for 22 years and now, without Narendra Modi as chief minister, it has to deal with the anti-incumbency factor; the Congress has put together a pragmatic coalition of Patidars, OBCS, and Dalits; and, finally, demonetisation and GST have hit small businessmen, making them angry at the BJP, for which they traditionally vote. Some experts believe these factors are offset by the BJP’S record in the state, and Modi himself, a son of the soil, who became Prime Minister of the country in 2014 after leading the BJP to the biggest win any party has seen in parliamentary elections in three decades.

In some ways, today’s verdict isn’t just about the Congress and the BJP but about how elections are predicted and analysed (ahead of the verdict). If it’s close, then it’s an indication that existing paradigms and rules of coverage, analysis, and forecasting still hold to some extent. If it’s not, then it’s one more point of evidence that these are outdated and need to change. Nothing else can explain close campaigns, and clear winners.