The first time I had been glued to the election forecast was in the year 1984 when I watched Prannoy Roy in Doordarshan TV and had developed keen interest in psephology over the period of years. I have had my eureka moments and also moments of wooden spoon. But Indian democracy is a vast landscape which is tough to understand and make predictions. I remember Late Pramod Mahajan commenting that Indian elections are not one just election but a culmination of 29 states & Union Territories & hence it is a nightmare for any psephologist to predict it right.
Over a period of years few people got their opinion and exit poll right while for most it was an embarrassing moment. These days television channels tie up with different third party agencies and arrive at numbers that they think is right. Since I am also in the business of electoral analysis I thought of analyzing past results and predictions of few analysts.
For the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, I had predicted that BJP would win 302 seats and INC would get 53 seats. My ground work was not intense but I had used my vast network to get vital information which proved to be an asset. But as I started to explore more I came across Jan Ki Baat (JKB) and its Founder Pradeep Bhandari who actually goes on the ground to capture the emotions of people and this is where he stood out from others who were more of armchair analysts predicting outcomes from air-conditioned rooms.
In fact Pradeep caught my eye when I noticed a tweet from Rxecutive Director of IMF for South Asia, Surjit Bhalla. On 5th April 2019, he had mentioned “Jan Ki Baat, in a few short years, has established a reputation as a very credible pollster – Pradeep presented results of extensive polling yesterday on TV. The first opinion poll to suggest a comfortable 300+ for the NDA. We all await 23rd May.”
Getting The Numbers Right
During the 2018 Karnataka Assembly elections, when most pollsters gave a decisive verdict for either BJP or Congress it was JKB which was closer to the final numbers. This kind of accuracy was possible only if one hits the ground and understands the psyche of voters.
And again during the Jharkhand Assembly polls in 2019, Pradeep Bhandari got it right in the best possible manner. He was the only one predict to decisively that not only BJP is losing power but also CM Raghuvar Das is losing. This made everyone to sit up and say that this youngster deserves a closer look.
It was in the run up to the Delhi Assembly Elections that critics pounded on him for saying that INC would not cross 5% and would not open the account. He was very close to the final numbers too.
Even amidst COVID pandemic times Pradeep Bhandari was firm that RLD would be the single largest party and would form the government with a wafer-thin majority. I was of the contrarian opinion that BJP would be the single largest party and NDA would form the government. Both of us got 1 right and 1 wrong but in the end, we ended up making the most accurate analysis.
It was before the announcement of GHMC election results that I happened to meet Pradeep in Hyderabad. Both of us had worked on the ground separately since I happen to live in Hyderabad. When we met we shared our vote share numbers and both of us were in the same range.
The 2021 Assembly Elections
Pradeep and I decided to collaborate for the 2021 elections. I decided to extensively hit the ground in Tamil Nadu while he was sweating it out in Bengal & Assam. After an insightful analysis on the ground he was bullish on BJP forming the governments in both the states. Unfortunately, and rarely he got it in wrong in Bengal but he was the only pollster to say that Mamata Didi would lose in Nandigram to Suvendhu Adhikari by 2000 votes and in fact she lost by 1956 votes!
In Assam, Pondichery and Kerala JKB got it right while in Tamil Nadu we had predicted an upper limit of 131 seats to DMK alliance, they ended up getting 159 seats.
Some of our predictions were closest. Here are some of the findings we had come out with before the results.
- DMK would lose in Modakuruchi was something unimaginable to anyone in Tamil Nadu since the candidate was a tall female DMK leader and it was considered a fortress.
- BJP’s Vanathi Srinivasan would score over Kamalhasan and INC would be pushed to 3rd place was another big call from Jan Ki Baat.
- At Kovilpatti TTV Dhinakaran would come to 2nd place was something which was a tough call but became a reality.
- We were criticized and condemned for saying that AIADMK would win 5 seats in Madurai district.
- Finally, JKB was the only agency to say that Seeman’s party would get 7% and final tally was 6.6%.
Our call was that Tamil Nadu elections were closer than what every other agency was predicting and it did come true when the vote share difference was hardly 4%.
The 5 State Elections
As early as in November in a private conversation, Pradeep was confident that AAP would emerge as single largest party. I was surprised by his prediction. But as the days passed by he was sanguine that AAP would have comfortable majority. The accuracy of his final prediction is a testimony to his work on the ground and that of the team of JKB. In hindsight we could safely conclude after seeing the final numbers that with each phase of opinion poll from November 2021 till the exit poll in March 2022 his prediction was the closest to reality.
JKB was completely correct in the Uttar Pradesh exit poll. In Punjab, the JKB exit polls put the vote percentage of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) between 39%-43%. AAP got 42% votes in the election result. Here also ‘Jan ki Baat’ proved to be completely correct. Similarly, in Goa Jan Ki Baat exit poll the vote share of BJP alliance was 31%-33%, in the election results also BJP got 33.31% votes.
In Uttar Pradesh the area of concern mentioned by Pradeep was in Poorvanchal and after the conclusion of 1st phase he told me in a private conversation that BJP was sweeping the Phase 1 which turned out to be true. I had said 275 seats for BJP+ while many pollsters had gone beyond 290. Pradeep told me that 255 would be a good & safe number for BJP and it did turn out to be true.
The vote share of BJP in Manipur in JKB exit poll was 34-38%, the vote share of BJP in the election result stood at 37.68%. Here too the vote percentage estimate was 100% correct. In this way ‘Jan Ki Baat’ was a complete success in the recent assembly elections of 5 states in terms of number of seats.
The Secret
How was this possible? The secret is that the Jan Ki Baat team speaks to wide demographics of people, and go as deep as possible in the rural areas, because that’s where the voters are.
Pradeep Bhandari has also written in detail in the book ‘Modi Vijaygatha’ on how the country chose Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister in 2019. His hard work can be understood only from this book. They are constantly touring the ground and challenging the agencies doing the survey from the AC room. This time most of the agencies talked about the formation of the Aam Aadmi Party government in Punjab, but the way the Aam Aadmi Party reached the unexpected seat number of 92, only ‘Jan Ki Baat’ could estimate a number that was close to it – 88.
From the north to south and the west to north-east, JKB has made giant strides by understanding the voter’s psyche proving to be the best in the game.
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