Regional parties could prevent Modi from returning to power

What are the opinion polls saying in March about Narendra Modi’s chances of coming to power? NDA Predictions are as follows

VMR – 283

News Nation – 273

C-Voter – 264

CNX – 285

Zee 24 Tas – 264

An overall range between 264 and 285

CrowdWisdom’s own bottoms up approach prediction had yielded 275 seats on March 5th much before these polls were released. It is unclear when VMR completed fieldwork for its opinion poll but most likely the last date of fieldwork was about 14th of March.

Apart from the bottoms up approach, CrowdWisdom also reports a Top down approach by using this full form, click here to access and predict. It is different from an opinion poll because we ask people what they think will happen, not who they will vote. We also ask their party biases

The plain averages for March are as follows

NDA – 295

UPA – 141

UPA Allies like SP BSP TDP TMC – 61

Others – 46

This is significantly higher than the number quoted by the opinion poll companies and assures Narendra Modi and his supporters that he will return to power.

However, the higher NDA performance is ALSO due to the fact that 60% of our participants are BJP supporters. So what we did we was applied the following weights

BJP supporters – 31%

Congress supporters – 20%

Others – 49%

This is on the basis of the 2014 elections. This is likely to have changed somewhat but we have no accurate estimate.

Once we apply these weights the revised estimates change

NDA – 253 (which is close to the average 18% error we reported in leading party’s predictions in the whole of 2018)

UPA – 168

UPA Allies – 67

Others – 54

This leaves the NDA short of majority by 20 seats. This could also mean Mr. Modi may not be the Prime Minister next. How?

At 253 versus 235, the election becomes very interesting. Who makes up for others?

– BJD

– TRS

– Left

– YSRCP

In this scenario, likelihood of a BJP or Congress Prime Minister is likely to be quite low given that BJD, TRS, Left are unlikely to support a BJP Government and BJD and TRS are unlikely to support a Congress Government. Jagan could end up being a tie-breaker if he can win more than than 17 seats currently predicted for YSRCP.  Very important to note that the participants are predicting just 35 seats for the BSP SP combine in UP.

See this video on Mayawati’s interest to be Prime Minister

BJP Chief’s comments on Mamata Banerjee’s chances of being Prime Minister

Pic: An alliance of Regional parties could prevent Modi from returning to power

The momentum in March whether it is Google Trends or our Urban Survey Indicate a favourable trend towards BJP. Whether this will take them beyond 260 or in the reverse direction will depend on how long this mini momentum lasts. Intriguing state of affairs!

While our own predictions, opinion polls and google trends have shown an upward trend for Narendra Modi until a week ago. The latest data seems to suggest a slowdown in momentum pushing the BJP seat predictions lower. This could lead to a 3rd party Prime Minister soon

Read our other article on why Modi may not be Prime Minister