Chances for a New Delhi Tea Party

Just about a fortnight left from now for the moment of truth to be tested in a month long process of identifying the leader of the largest democracy in the world. The run up to the 16th elections has been nothing short of a thriller. Hundreds of debates, thousands of articles and millions of coffee table talks will be put to rest in couple of months time. 

Given all the drama and the publicity about the election itself, it will all boil down to the numbers. So purely numerically what are the chances of the parties. Here is a short but one-sided view. Because, in effect, there are only 2 parties that call the shots in India. Therefore, 40 percent chance for 1 means 60 percent for the other. This is of course the basic assumption of the model I derived. However, the presence of the 3rd front would only split the votes leading to a possible coalition with one of the other major parties.

The breakdown of seats is as follows:

S.No	State/UT	Seats
1	Andhra Pradesh	42
2	Arunachal Pradesh	2
3	Assam	14
4	Bihar	40
5	Chhattisgarh	11
6	Goa	2
7	Gujarat	26
8	Haryana	10
9	Himachal Pradesh	4
10	Jammu and Kashmir	6
11	Jharkhand	14
12	Karnataka	28
13	Kerala	20
14	Madhya Pradesh	29
15	Maharashtra	48
16	Manipur	2
17	Meghalaya	2
18	Mizoram	1
19	Nagaland	1
20	Orissa	21
21	Punjab	13
22	Rajasthan	25
23	Sikkim	1
24	Tamil Nadu	39
25	Tripura	2
26	Uttar Pradesh	80
27	Uttarakhand	5
28	West Bengal	42
1	Andaman and Nicobar Islands	1
2	Chandigarh	1
3	Dadra and Nagar Haveli	1
4	Daman and Diu	1
5	Delhi	7
6	Lakshadweep	1
7	Puducherry	1
0	TOTAL	543

In all we have, 543 seats as shown above. We need 272 for a majority and 362 for the 2/3rd majority. Given the circumstances and the record of elections in the last 20 years, 2/3rd seems a far chance for either parties. So what is the chance of a Delhi Cha Party our very own Bhajpa?

In order to derive the chances 3 scenarios need to be considered,

a. Base case: In this case it is assumed, that Bhajpa will only perform as good as last time in majority of the states, however, it will also perform the best (that is maximum votes) in their home states.

b. Best case: This is probably, a more realistic case, Bhajpa performs well as good as last time in 50% of the majority of states and gets maximum votes in 50% of their home states.

c. Optimistic case: This case has 3 further conditions, 1. Bhajpa peforms as good as 1999 in all the states, 2. Bhajpa also performs best in the states they lost in 1999 and 3. Bhajpa gets all the seats in their home states

d. Pessimistic case: No analysis can be unbiased until we have a pessimistic case, in this case, Bhajpa loses ground in all the states they performed well in 1999, also they get the minimum votes equivalent to the seats won in 2004.

Given these cases, the results look as following:

The realistic case indicates that we can expect seats to be won between 142 and 223. 

However, since this analysis doesn't take into account coalition, this shows Bhajpa can win up to 223 and needs the support of some other parties to fill in the gap to reach 272. So we are looking at a possible coalition of at least 50 seats.

This brings us to the point, where can these 50+ seats be garnered? Looking at the table above, this can be achieved in 2 of the big states in 1. Uttar Pradesh, 2. Tamil Nadu. Please note there are other big states as well, however, those big states have already been accounted in the Optimistic case to reach 223. These are the only 2 states, where Bhajpa's optimistic votes are the least. Therefore a good coalition in either of these 2 states will bring a clear majority for Bhajpa. 

Given that there has been clear rifts in the 3rd front, I  wouldn't be surprised if UP or TN becomes the king maker in the elections 2014.

Looking forward to an exciting 2 months of democratic process!!