New Delhi:
The BJP is likely to perform better this time than what it achieved in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, a top economist and psephologist told NDTV today.
Surjit Bhalla, whose new book 'How We Vote' describes the voter's mindset, said in an interview with NDTV that the BJP may get 330 to 350 seats.
“Based on statistical possibilities, they should get 330 to 350 seats on their own. This is only the BJP, excluding its alliance partners,” said Mr. Bhalla, who agreed that the party whose campaign is being led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was likely to see a 5 to 7 percent increase in the number of seats won compared to the results of 2019.
“It could be a wave election. Every election has the potential (to be a wave). But these cannot be wave elections either,” says the economist who has been following elections in India for forty years.
Before the Opposition Congress, Mr. Bhalla said the party could win 44 seats, or 2 percent less than what it won in the 2014 elections, the year Prime Minister Modi became Prime Minister.
“The problem with the (opposition) alliance is the leadership. The economy is the most important, the leadership is second. And both are in favor of the BJP. “If the Opposition had chosen a leader who could have mass appeal or approximately If we halve Prime Minister Modi's appeal, then I think it could be a contest,” Bhalla told NDTV.
He predicted that the BJP was likely to win at least five seats in Tamil Nadu, where the BJP has traditionally been a weak party. “I won't be surprised if the BJP wins more than five seats in Tamil Nadu out of all places. In Kerala, maybe one or two,” Bhalla said.
He attributed this opportunity to the improvement of people's living conditions. “India votes based on the extent to which progress has been made in people's lives. That is the starting point. It's not about caste, it's not about gender, it's not about the various factors that people attribute to, but it's exactly what Bill Clinton had said in 1992: 'It's the economy, stupid,'” Bhalla said.
“What we are saying is that because of the significant improvement in their lives, 1 percent or 14 million people are poor according to the old definition of poverty. Look, we have developed, per capita consumption has improved, lives have improved, so increase poverty.” In a sense, perhaps a quarter of the population is poor. Poverty is now relative, and no longer absolute.
“The poor will always be with us. The rich will always be with us. It depends on how you define who the poor are, and we'll use the World Bank's definition of $1.9 per person per day. We say this should be doubled because of the improvement of lives and economy,” said Mr Bhalla.
He dismissed the data from think tank Center for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) as unreliable and accused the opposition of selectively using the CMIE data to attack the BJP during the election season.
“Everywhere in the world the opposition will always say that inflation is high and there are too few jobs. But for example, there is less percentage of people unemployed than in 2019 in India,” said Bhalla.
“I'm not alone in questioning the (CMIE) data. Several authors have done so as well. They say there are fewer women employed in India today than in Yemen and Iraq, less than 10 percent? Here's the point that I want to make It is so absurd. Why does it have money? Because the opposition loves it. I think it is one of the most unreliable data published anywhere in the world.
The second phase of the Lok Sabha elections will take place on April 26. The rest takes place in May. The votes will be counted on June 4.