Gujarat Assembly Poll prediction by Pavithran
H A M
R A M
Gujarat Poll had become a battle between HAM vs Ram pushing Rahul of Congress to the background – Rahul becoming a second fiddle in the battle - though he is the star campaigner. Congress, it seems, pins its hopes on these three young guys to garner votes of Patels, OBCs and Dalits aligning with Hardik, Alpesh and Mevani Trio - HAM - being local faces. How far Congress calculations is going to succeed will be known on the counting day on 18th December 2017.
RAM team is also aggressively in the Gujarat election battle and M is in the forefront duly supported by A and many others.
For BJP and in particular for Modi, winning Gujarat election is a litmus test for him and any failure will put him in a very embarrassing position – Gujarat being his home state where he had ruled the state as Chief Minister for four consecutive terms. Hence Amit Shaw and Modi are campaigning aggressively along with Rupani and many local leaders apart from ministers from Centre.
Rahul also had taken this election seriously and is campaigning vigorously – visiting temples to shed the Congress Image of Anit-Hindu apart from seeking the support of H A M team – assuring Hardik that reservations for Patel community will be given on Congress assuming power in the state.
In Surat and other areas, Hardik could attract huge crowd especially young Patels who are very much against BJP and in all probabilities, a sizeable young Patels may vote for Congress.
Being traditional traders, Patels are not happy with the Note Ban and more so in Modi’s GST implementation. Patels as merchants are not honest in paying taxes and hence the implementation of GST may force them to pay taxes. Still, many merchants are not against Modi in particular because they feel that their interests here and abroad where Patel’s communities having business interests will get their share of benefits in due course.
In one report, many Patel Merchants had said: “In fact, we had suffered due to demonetization and GST. But Modi is PM from our state and hence, for his victory, we are prepared to even sell our properties to make him win.”
Even among some section of young Patels, Modi is trustworthy compared to Hardik or Congress and they like to support BJP in spite of Hardik revolt and agitation against the present BJP government and its non-supportive tendency in acceding to his request of reservation for Patel under OBC quota.
While old generations are solidly behind Modi, some young Patels are very much behind Hardik. But, to the BJP’s happiness, many Patels’ Organisations are against Hardik aligning with Congress and hence, they had decided to vote BJP and not Congress.
Further, while Alpesh had joined Congress, Hardik Patel and Mevani had only supporting Congress. Mevani is standing as an independent candidate, Hardik is not eligible to stand for election due to his age factor – he is only 24 years.
Congress soft corner and appeasement approach are not liked by Alpesh and Mevani, but, due to compelling reasons, they are not making it as an issue. But their community people are quite aware of these developments and hence it is a big question whether OBCs and Dalits will vote en masse to Congress.
Three recent happenings are working against Congress.
1. Mevani is now known to have received cheque for his election from the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) which is the political wing of the Popular Front of India (PFI) – PFI is under lens in south India for its involvement in terror activities. He is backed by Congress and hence Congress has to face very embarrassing situations and it seems that such an alliance candidate will affect its votes in the election.
2.
The Gujarat Arch Bishop calls for his Christian followers to defeat ‘Nationalist forces’ indirectly indicating ‘not to vote for BJP, but do vote for Congress’, may fetch Christian votes for Congress – but, they may in all likelihood lose Hindu votes and this appeal also will dampen the credibility of Congress’s Secular mask in view of its maintaining stock silence.
Now, posters containing the appeal – “To maintain Muslim Unity and to make Ahmed Patel Gujarat’s Vazir-e-alam, Muslim should only vote to congress” – were seen in Muslim’s dominated areas in Surat. Though Rahul’s Hindu Temple visits and his declaration that ‘his family and himself are Shiv Bhakths’ – had angered Muslims of Gujarat in general, this poster may soften their attitudes and fetch their votes – though the Hindus may not feel happy on such events and may even desert congress. But, only counting day will give us the ground realities.
3. Mani Shankar Iyer’s Neech Remark about Modi was fully exploited by Modi. Iyer had said that Modi is a neetch aadmi and for that he was removed from Congress – even losing his primary membership of congress even without waiting for his reply on the notice served on him.
Now let us concentrate on Opinion Polls of various agencies. No opinion poll indicates that anti-incumbency is in Gujarat and that all in one voice had said: ’The BJP is all said to form the next Government.”
That means that BJP will definitely get 91+ - half way mark of total 182 seats and that there is no possibility of Congress getting majority in this election.
Here is the Opinion Polls Chart:
In the previous Assembly Election, BJP got 115 seats and Congress 61 seats. Seats secured by Congress for 2002 and 2007 are 51 and 59 only. If average of seats secured by Congress from 1990 till 2012 is only 50. Hence I feel Congress at best can get around 50 seats.
I had also followed the various trends, reports, news etc.
According to me, the voting prediction may be like this:
BJP - 145 + or – 5
Congress – 40 + or – 5
In NDTV article which is quite anti-modi, it was stated that 'Congress with Rahul will not win either this Gujarat Election or future elections for long!'
In short, though many had said that Amit Shaw target figure of 150+ will not be achieved, I feel that the magic figure of 150 seats in Gujarat Assembly is quite possible.
Let us wait till 18th December 2017 to know the actually results.
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