"In Episode 7 of Elections Simplified, Amitabh Tiwari talks about the coming state elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Telangana, Mizoram. Link For Previous Episodes:
Episode 01- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEl_MvbSMwQ&list=PLruG7WvKjQE8tAF-CJrzbiZKILgjq8XQs&index=1
Episode 02- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKKf34Zil9g&list=PLruG7WvKjQE8tAF-CJrzbiZKILgjq8XQs&index=2
Episode 03-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFUBWNKOyrU&list=PLruG7WvKjQE8tAF-CJrzbiZKILgjq8XQs&index=4
Episode 04: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiDzTrxjTtg&list=PLruG7WvKjQE8tAF-CJrzbiZKILgjq8XQs&index=1 Episode 05: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8Vow6xUhV4&list=PLruG7WvKjQE8tAF-CJrzbiZKILgjq8XQs&index=1 Episode 06: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMDPbDVnXZc&list=PLruG7WvKjQE8tAF-CJrzbiZKILgjq8XQs&index=3
Data Sources:
CSDS National Election Studies
Axis My India Exit Polls
Elections Commission of India
www.indiavotes.com
News Reports and Author's Proprietary Calculations
About Amitabh Tiwari:
Amitabh Tiwari is a political strategist & commentator. In his earlier avatar he was a corporate and investment banker.
@politicalbaba
#Elections2023 #MadhyaPradeshElection #ShivrajSinghChouhan #Kamalnath #BJP #Congress #JyotiradityaScindia #PMModi #Chhattisgarh #BhupeshBaghel #RamanSingh #Rajasthan #AshokGehlot #SachinPilot #VasundharaRaje #OMBirla #BRS #KChandrasekharRao #TRS #Telangana #KCR #AssemblyElections #HWNews
Episode 01- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEl_MvbSMwQ&list=PLruG7WvKjQE8tAF-CJrzbiZKILgjq8XQs&index=1
Episode 02- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKKf34Zil9g&list=PLruG7WvKjQE8tAF-CJrzbiZKILgjq8XQs&index=2
Episode 03-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFUBWNKOyrU&list=PLruG7WvKjQE8tAF-CJrzbiZKILgjq8XQs&index=4
Episode 04: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiDzTrxjTtg&list=PLruG7WvKjQE8tAF-CJrzbiZKILgjq8XQs&index=1 Episode 05: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8Vow6xUhV4&list=PLruG7WvKjQE8tAF-CJrzbiZKILgjq8XQs&index=1 Episode 06: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMDPbDVnXZc&list=PLruG7WvKjQE8tAF-CJrzbiZKILgjq8XQs&index=3
Data Sources:
CSDS National Election Studies
Axis My India Exit Polls
Elections Commission of India
www.indiavotes.com
News Reports and Author's Proprietary Calculations
About Amitabh Tiwari:
Amitabh Tiwari is a political strategist & commentator. In his earlier avatar he was a corporate and investment banker.
@politicalbaba
#Elections2023 #MadhyaPradeshElection #ShivrajSinghChouhan #Kamalnath #BJP #Congress #JyotiradityaScindia #PMModi #Chhattisgarh #BhupeshBaghel #RamanSingh #Rajasthan #AshokGehlot #SachinPilot #VasundharaRaje #OMBirla #BRS #KChandrasekharRao #TRS #Telangana #KCR #AssemblyElections #HWNews
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Jai Hind, Namaste Viewers. Welcome to the 7th episode of Elections Simplified.
00:05 In the last episode, we saw how socio-economic class impacts voting patterns of India
00:20 and how different groups - poor, rich, middle class have voted for parties over the years.
00:25 If you have seen the episode, a big thank you. If you haven't, please do watch. The link is
00:30 in the description of the video. Today, friends, taking a break from Lok Sabha Elections 2024,
00:38 we will be focusing on the state elections 2023.
00:42 Now, elections to 5 states are likely to happen at the end of the year.
00:49 Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram. The election dates have not yet been
00:56 announced but they are expected to be announced soon in the first half of October. The BJP is in
01:03 power in Madhya Pradesh, the Congress in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, the TRS or now the BRS in
01:10 Telangana and the Mizo National Front in Mizoram. Between them, these states account for 83 Lok
01:17 Sabha seats which is 15% of the Lok Sabha strength. That's why these elections are being touted as the
01:25 semi-finals for the grand finale in 2024. Will the results of these state elections impact the Lok
01:33 Sabha results? Let's see. In the 2008-2009 pair of Vedan and Lok Sabha elections, as well as 2013-14,
01:44 a strong correlation between the state election results and the Lok Sabha results were observed.
01:49 In 2008-09, in 4 states, Karnataka, MP, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, whichever party won the state
01:57 election, went on to win or lead in similar assembly segments in Lok Sabha as shown in the
02:04 graph. In 2013-14, in all these states except for Karnataka, the same party emerged as the winner
02:14 in both the Vedan and the Lok Sabha elections. Now, this trend was broken in 2018. You would
02:21 recall friends that Congress won 3 state elections of MP, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. But 3 months
02:29 later, the BJP managed to sweep all these states in Lok Sabha elections 2019. So, while the
02:37 correlation between state and national elections has weakened over the years, with the voters
02:42 exhibiting a split voting pattern, since these elections are held so close to the national
02:49 elections, within 3-4 months span, it is bound to have a psychological impact.
02:57 Now, let's discuss who will win these states in 2023. Let's look at the historical data to give
03:05 you a perspective. It's often said that history doesn't repeat itself but it does rhyme.
03:12 So now, let us discuss about the state of Rajasthan.
03:17 Who will win Rajasthan? Now, no government has come back to power in Rajasthan since 1993.
03:27 So, for 3 decades, there has been a revolving door mechanism followed in the state. The BJP,
03:34 Congress, then BJP, then Congress, then BJP and then Congress again in the last 6 elections.
03:40 Wherever BJP wins, it has been winning big 120-160 seats. Whereas the Congress has failed
03:48 to secure a simple majority of 101 seats in the last 2 times it has won the election in 2008 and
03:55 2018. Then it was able to form the government with the support of smaller parties like BSP
04:02 and Independence. Now friends, if we go purely by the trend which is fairly strong, it is the turn
04:08 of BJP to win this time. Both the Congress and the BJP are facing factionalism. There was an
04:15 open spat between the CM Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot, though now the party seems to have settled
04:22 the dispute. The high command has assured Pilot that who will be CM will be decided after the
04:28 polls. On the other hand, there is a long list of CM aspirants in the BJP ranging from Vasundhara
04:34 Raje, former CM, to leader of opposition Rajendra Rathore, to state president CP Joshi, to ex-state
04:41 president Satish Pania, to central ministers like Gajendra Shekhawat or even the speaker Om Birla.
04:49 Former CM Vasundhara Raje is miffed at the central leadership for not being declared as the CM face,
04:56 with the BJP deciding to contest the polls under the combined leadership of these leaders seeking
05:03 votes in the name of PM Modi. So, will the trend break or will it hold? Now, three states Punjab,
05:11 Kerala and Tamil Nadu exhibited a similar trend of alternate governments. In all these states,
05:19 the trend has been broken. In Punjab, it was broken in 2012, in Tamil Nadu in 2016 and in
05:26 Kerala in 2021. Now, Gehlot has taken a leaf from all these states and learnt lessons, applying them
05:34 in his campaign. He has been encouraging factionalism in the BJP unit, which is the lesson from Punjab.
05:42 He has initiated a number of social welfare programs, the lesson from Tamil Nadu, the Amma
05:48 model as you can say. And he has been improving or increasing his communication, visibility and
05:54 delivery. He is a shy person but he has launched an extensive PR and publicity blitz, learning from
06:00 Vijayan, which is the Kerala model. Now, armed with his three-point plan,
06:07 Gehlot hopes to give BJP a run for its money in Rajasthan. On the other hand, the BJP is banking
06:14 on the strong trend, the popularity of Modi which is higher than other states because it is a Hindi
06:19 state and a strong organization in the state to defeat Gehlot. It also hopes that Congress party
06:27 leadership issues would boil again closer to the voting date, damaging the grand old party's
06:33 prospects. Now, what are the opinion polls saying? Opinion polls are divided on who is winning
06:38 Rajasthan. While ABPC voter predicts a BJP victory, the Times Now ETG predicts a close contest,
06:46 the IANS poll strat gives the state to the Congress. A word of caution, early opinion
06:53 polls do tend to get it wrong as candidates have not yet been announced.
06:58 Now, let's discuss about the other state, Madhya Pradesh.
07:02 In Madhya Pradesh, the BJP has been in power for almost 20 years, except for a brief 15-16
07:12 month period in 2018-19. It has been in power since 2003. Like Rajasthan, MP was one of the
07:20 first three states where BJP was able to form its government after its formation in 1980.
07:28 Shivraj Singh Chauhan, the current Chief Minister, is the longest serving BJP CM,
07:33 even higher than Narendra Modi. After Gujarat, MP is the state where BJP has been in power for the
07:41 longest time. Now, the Congress under the leadership of Kamal Nath smells a chance to
07:46 make a comeback riding on the anti-incumbency against Shivraj led government. It also hopes
07:54 that there is some sympathy factor in favour of Kamal Nath. Now, Congress had emerged as the
08:00 single largest party, won 14 seats, just two short of majority in 2018 and had formed the government
08:08 with the help of independents and smaller parties. But 15 months in its tenure, there was a rebellion
08:15 led by Jyotiraditya Sindhiya who took 22 MLAs along with him and these MLAs resigned and joined
08:23 the BJP and the Congress government came into a minority with the BJP making a comeback.
08:29 Now, in the 2023 election, both the parties have flipped their strategy.
08:35 In 2018, Congress contested on a combined leadership of Kamal Nath, Digvijay Singh and
08:43 Sindhiya while BJP was contesting a presidential style campaign with Narendra Modi and Shivraj
08:50 Singh Chauhan at the helm. This time, strangely, BJP is shying away from declaring Shivraj Singh
08:57 Chauhan as the Chief Minister. In fact, they even tried to replace him but couldn't find a
09:02 replacement because he is the only OBC Chief Minister which BJP has to take. BJP will be
09:08 seeking votes in the name of PM Narendra Modi and contest the polls on a combined leadership model.
09:14 On the other hand, this time, the Congress is attempting to make the contest presidential
09:21 style contest pitching Kamal Nath vs Shivraj Singh Chauhan. The BJP has realised that it is
09:28 a tough seat by seat battle and has already announced 78 candidates much before the poll
09:36 dates have been announced and has also put 3 ministers and 7 MPs in the election frame.
09:42 On the other hand, the Congress after the success of Karnataka is harping on its 5 guarantees for
09:50 the poor, unemployed and the youth. However, Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Mama as he is fondly called,
09:58 is trying to negate some of these promises by launching schemes like Ladli Behna.
10:04 However, Shivraj Singh Chauhan has become weaker in the Modi Shah era and the voter clearly sees
10:12 that the BJP is not projecting Shivraj if in such a scenario what happens is that if the party
10:19 itself is not confident of the leadership, how can the voter be? Why is BJP not going ahead
10:27 by declaring a CM face in Madhya Pradesh? Friends, what happens is that in a Vidhan Sabha election,
10:35 the local candidate role is fairly important unlike the Lok Sabha election. In the Lok Sabha
10:43 election, the face of the Prime Minister, 37% people tend to vote. While in the Vidhan Sabha
10:50 election, if we take an average of these 4 states in 2018, only 21% voters voted in the name of the
10:59 Chief Minister or the Prime Minister. 39% people the highest voted in the name of the local
11:06 candidate. So, the local candidate is fairly important in a Vidhan Sabha election. BJP
11:11 realizes this after loss in Himachal and Karnataka and that is why it is trying to be battle ready
11:19 for a seat by seat contest. Now, what are the polls saying? Again, a khichdi here. ABPC voter
11:27 shows that Congress is likely to win the state. Times Now ETG survey also says the same. But IANS
11:38 poll strat predicts BJP retaining the state. Again a word of caution, early opinion polls
11:44 can tend to get wrong. Now, let's discuss about the third state of Chhattisgarh.
11:51 In Chhattisgarh, the Congress government led by Bhupesh Bagel has been in power for the last 5
12:00 years after recording a stupendous victory in 2018. Here as well, like in Rajasthan,
12:07 there was a leadership dispute between Bhupesh Bagel and T.S. Singh Dev for rotational chief
12:14 ministership. This was settled recently by the Congress High Command by making T.S. Singh Dev
12:21 the deputy chief minister of the state. On the other hand, after Raman Singh, the BJP has been
12:28 facing a leadership crisis in the state. Over the past 5 years, it has changed 3 state presidents
12:35 and is still to come out of the shadow of Raman Singh. Raman Singh incidentally is still the
12:41 most favoured CM candidate of BJP in the minds of voters. The BJP strategy is in line with what has
12:49 worked for it in the past and hence it has not decided to announce any CM candidate. If we
12:57 consider the period from 2014 to 2023, wherever the party has been in opposition in states,
13:04 it does not announce a CM candidate. It projects PM Modi as a super CM under whose leadership a
13:11 custodian of double-engined Sarkar will be appointed after the victory. This has worked
13:17 well for BJP in state after state like Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Haryana, Assam, Himachal, Uttarakhand,
13:25 Uttar Pradesh to name a few. Now in 2018, the BJP could win only 15 seats with Congress winning 68
13:34 and the Janata Chhattisgarh Congress, the party of Amit Jogi and Ajit Jogi and the BSP alliance won
13:41 7 seats, damaging the BJP. Historically, in Chhattisgarh, the contest has always been close
13:48 between the BJP and the Congress with vote share gap of between 1-3%. Our BSP recorded more than
13:56 the victory margin of BJP in all the elections from 2003 to 2013. In 2018, what happened is that
14:04 Ajit Jogi left the Congress to form his own party, the Janata Congress Chhattisgarh. It was widely
14:11 believed that he would damage the Congress. However, contrary to expectations and shown in
14:17 the chart below, he damaged the BJP. The BJP lost 9% vote share while the JCC got 7% vote share
14:27 leading to a rout of the BJP in the elections. In the 2023 elections, the satisfaction levels
14:34 with the Bagel government are fairly high. While Modi is popular, so is Bagel. Farmers account for
14:42 80% of the population of Chhattisgarh and the bonus for paddy and farmer-centric schemes like
14:48 free electricity have been a hit with the populace. The BJP is banking on the anti-incumbency against
14:55 the MLAs and trying to make the contest local. It hopes that with a weakened JCC, after the death of
15:04 Ajit Jogi, the voters who switched in 2018 to JCC will make a comeback and make the contest
15:12 interesting. Now, what do the opinion polls show here? The opinion polls are giving a unanimous
15:20 sort of a verdict with ABPC voter predicting a Congress victory as well as an IBC24 predicting
15:28 a Congress win. Again a word of caution, early opinion polls tend to get it wrong as candidates
15:34 of all parties have not yet been announced. BJP has announced candidates for 21 seats but the
15:41 other parties have not yet announced candidates. So now, let's talk about the fourth state of
15:48 Telangana. In Telangana, the TRS, the Telangana Rashtriya Samithi or which is now called the
15:57 Bharatiya Rashtriya Samithi, the government led by K Chandrashekhar Rao has been in power for the
16:03 last 10 years. He and his party are credited with the formation of Telangana after years of demand
16:10 for separate statehood and thus TRS, BRS and KCR have been enjoying the fruits of this struggle
16:18 and power. KCR is fairly popular through his schemes and there is no strong leader of his
16:24 calibre in the opposition to take him on. In 2018, the TRS swept the state winning 88 of the 119
16:34 seats on offer, bagging 47.4% vote share. The Congress was a distant second with 19 seats
16:42 and 28.7% vote share. In the last 5 years, what has happened is that the BJP adopted an aggressive
16:50 approach in the state in a bid to displace Congress as the number 2 party in the state,
16:56 taking advantage of the weakening Congress nationally. Till some 6 months ago, it was
17:02 expected that the contest was between the Congress and the BJP for the second spot with
17:08 BRS or TRS clearly the favourite. However, after the Congress won Karnataka,
17:16 things have grown hotter in the state. Increased resources with the party,
17:21 rumblings in BRS old guard for fear of a potential power transfer to KCR's son KTR,
17:29 exodus of leaders from TRS to Congress, soft approach of BJP towards KCR have made the
17:36 contest close. It is alleged that the TRS propped up the BJP to split the opposition vote. Congress
17:43 has been able, somewhat able to drive home the narrative that the BJP and AIMIM are the B team
17:51 of TRS-BRS and are helping the party to defeat Congress. The Congress has got a new energy after
17:57 Khadge becoming president. Its guarantees are getting traction and there is also news of BJP
18:03 leaders perhaps moving to the Congress in the coming days. If its able to consolidate the
18:09 opposition vote then it could give KCR a scare. TRS has announced candidates on almost all seats
18:17 repeating most of the MLAs. However, friends, as you know, 10 years is a long enough time to
18:23 develop any sort of natural anti-incumbency. No national level agency has still surveyed Telangana.
18:31 Local level surveys show a close contest with TRS having an upper hand.
18:37 Friends, we will be doing a separate show on each of the states in detail wherein we will discuss
18:44 issues, trends, cast wise voting strategy and survey results. To recap,
18:51 So, friends, we discussed how the state elections of 2023 which will be held just 3-4 months before
19:02 the Lok Sabha elections could play a crucial role in determining who wins Lok Sabha Elections 2024.
19:09 Even though the correlation has weakened over the years, there could be a psychological impact of
19:15 the results on the Lok Sabha Elections 2024. That's why its called as a semi-finals to the
19:22 grand finale. Thank you if you have been watching. See you when I see you. Namaste.
19:37 [Music]