BJP analyst forecasts NDA victory

The Bharatiya Janata Party has found own way to circumvent the Election Commission's ban on opinion polls and poll forecasts by letting its own psephologist try to convince the media why the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance is all set to come to power.

G V L Narsimha Rao, who joined the BJP as also its government in Madhya Pradesh as the chief minister's media adviser after predicting its victory in the assembly polls, was presented to the print media after the regular press briefing at the party headquarters in New Delhi on Wednesday to share his analysis of trends in the ongoing elections.

Pointing out that he had forecast Mayawati sweeping the Uttar Pradesh polls and the BJP coming to power in Karnataka, he said his latest forecast based on the trends so far is that the BJP will emerge as the biggest party and the National Democratic Alliance as the biggest pre-poll alliance and this will give a momentum for formation of the new government under the prime ministership of Lal Krishna Advani.

Rao factored nine reasons for his analysis, the foremost being a clear trend that it is the BJP that has been setting the poll agenda and the Congress is engaged in just responding to the issues that the BJP is bringing into focus. This itself is indicative of the Congress losing the elections, Rao claimed.

Other factors that weighed in his analysis to predict the NDA's return to power include:

Unecessary Issues: The BJP remains focused on its leadership and agenda for governance while Congress is busy with unnecessary issues like Kandahar hijack episode and Babri Mosque demolition that have no relevance in this elections.

Leadership: The BJP has a long queue of the effective state-level leaders like Narendra Modi, Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Raman Singh, B S Yedurappa, B K Khanduri, P K Dhumal and Vasundhara Raje Scindia who can get the party results on their own while the Congress has no such leaders at the state level and even at the national level, the leadership is confined to one family.

The only state-level leader the Congress has is Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajshekhar Reddy who has also given a poor show of the party in the first phase of elections on April 16.

Division of UPA votes: The division of the UPA votes because of the regional parties like the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh and Rashtriya Janata Dal of Lalu Prasad and Lok Janshakti Party of Ramvilas Paswan are helping the NDA make big strides.

Muslim votes: Muslims are traditionally seen as anti-BJP but this time their votes do not seem consolidated to defeat the BJP as their votes may get divided among many parties like the Bahujan Samaj Party, Samajwadi Party, Congress, Ulema Council and Rashtriya Lok Dal.

Poll management and strategy: The BJP is concentrating on only 300 Lok Sabha constituencies, though contesting on 427 seats, with attention to the minutest issues and the strategy is to grasp the ground realities through surveys to raise the local issues and not remain confined to just the national issues in the poll manifesto.

Anti-Congress wave: The anti-Congressism has emerged fast in the course of the elections, more so because of the Congress refusing to have an alliance with any party at the national level and trying to diminish the regional parties. Those finding the Congress not allowing them to expand will do anything to prevent Congress coming to power and they include the SP, the RLD and the LJP.

Statements of various non-NDA leaders, like Jayalalithaa, Karunanidhi, Lalu Prasad, Prakash Karat or Bardhan only show that confusion and dissatisfaction prevails outside the NDA camp, Rao underlined.

He said all these factors will play a role in many regional parties coming under the umbrella of the BJP to pave the way for the Advani-led NDA government. Rao, however, refused to name the parties.