BJP may win, but Cong lives to fight another day

The latest opinion surveys make it clear that the BJP-led NDA is set to win the next elections. There is no question of the UPA’s return, but there is a question-mark about the scale of the BJP’s win. The survey, conducted by NDTV with a large sample of over 2,00,000 voters in 350 constituencies, shows that the NDA can get 229 seats and form a government under Narendra Modi with two or three large non-NDA parties, perhaps AIADMK, BJD and the Telangana Rashtra Samiti – and some stragglers. The BJP itself is expected to post its highest-ever total by winning 195 seats. (See the full details here). Here are the key implications of the survey. #1: Narendra Modi is sure to make it to 7, Race Course Road after 16 May, but he will have a large coalition to manage. The BJP-272 strategy is not working – at least not yet – and the party needs a huge surge over the next few weeks to get better totals. [caption id=“attachment_1436091” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  BJP party flags. Agencies.[/caption] #2: The UPA is far behind with 129 seats, and but the good news is NDA and UPA between then have more than 350 seats. So there is no question of a Third Front or a Fourth Front entering the picture. In fact, the biggest story from the survey is not the BJP win, but that the Congress defeat may not be total. It will live to fight another day. #3: The survey shows that though the BJP is making gains in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the gains are not enough. While the BJP gets 40 seats in UP, it gets 23 in Bihar even in association with Ram Vilas Paswan’s LJP. Clearly, the party has a lot of work to do in UP, and make the LJP alliance work to deliver more. #4: The biggest regional party will be the Trinamool Congress of Mamata Banerjee with 32 seats, not Jayalalithaa. This gives Mamata big leverage, but only if she abandons her Modi untouchability. If Jayalalithaa and Mamata bargain together, they will have 59 seats between them, and they can call the shots in NDA-2, even if they stay out of the government. Add Navin Patnaik’s BJD (17 seats), and we have a solid chunk of 76 seats in the group. This could be a big headache for Modi if they negotiate together. #5: The BJP has clearly got its strategy wrong in both Telangana and Seemandhra. Even though it has been an early supporter of Telangana, it will be washed out in that state, and in Seemandhra, its alliance with Telugu Desam appears unlikely to benefit either party too much. The BJP would benefit by tying up with TRS in Telangana rather than TDP. Seemandhra is going YSR Congress’s way. **#6:**The Aam Aadmi Party is winning all of four seats – all of them in Delhi. This shows that the party is wasting its time trying to fight 400 seats when it could have done better by fighting harder in the neighbouring state of Haryana. Here the BJP-HJC alliance seems to be winning. AAP is spreading itself too thin and is losing the plot. #7: The Congress is not doing too badly at all, with 106 seats. As against this, punters were till the other day giving it only double-digit totals. This shows that Rahul Gandhi has a good enough base to build on for the next general elections. #8: Modi’s dream of a Congress-mukt Bharat is not happening this time, but the Right-wing’s dream of a Left-mukt India is closer to reality. The Left Front will get all of 18 seats and will be reduced to a bit player. If AAP plays its card better as a sensible Left-of-centre party, the Left may be in big trouble. Every major regional party is now bigger than the collective Left. #9: The Samajwadi Party and the Janata Dal (U) will be the biggest losers in this election. Neither Mulayam Singh (13 seats) nor Nitish Kumar (5 seats) is anywhere near becoming PM, but could, in fact, face extinction. Mayawati, with 17 seats, does a bit better, but not much. #10: Due to the current composition of the NDA, some strong regional players could be left out in the cold: Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSR Congress (15 seats) and DMK (10 seats) among them. Their best bet may be to work themselves back to the UPA. The Congress has many winning losers to woo before the next election to form the hard core of its support base in a future UPA-3.