BJP could lose up to 32 of the 62 seats it won in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. (Photo: PTI)

The BJP could lose up to 32 of the 62 seats it won in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh if the trends witnessed in the assembly elections are replicated in the big general elections in 2019.

These three Hindi heartland states had offered rich pickings for the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The party had swept virtually all the seats on offer in these three states bagging an aggregate of 62 out of the 65 seats on offer.

The India Today data team extrapolated the results from every assembly seat in the Hindi heartland states over Lok Sabha seats to get a sense of what the fight could look like in the 2019 general elections. The findings don’t make for pretty reading for BJP supporters. An important caveat is that these elections were fought largely on local issues and the key issues in the Lok Sabha elections are likely to be very different.

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However, a mathematical extrapolation of assembly election results is useful to get a sense of the challenge that confronts the BJP top brass.

According to the calculations run by India Today, the Congress’ tally in the next Lok Sabha polls could jump from 3 to 33 seats in the 2019 general elections. The BJP’s tally could drop by more than half, from 62 to 30 seats.

A state-wise analysis of the same data suggests that the BJP might lose the maximum number of Lok Sabha seats in Rajasthan, where the party had bagged all the 25 seats on offer in 2014.

Going by the trends seen on December 11, the BJP’s tally in the desert state could fall to 13 seats, which would represent a loss of 12 seats for the BJP. The Congress which had drawn a blank could hope to win 12 Lok Sabha seats in Rajasthan.

BATTLE FOR HINDI HEARTLAND: BJP

2014 LOK SABHA 2019 PROJECTION Madhya Pradesh 27 16 (-11) Rajasthan 25 13 (-12) Chhattisgarh 10 1(-9) Total 62 30 (-32)

The Congress leads in Lok Sabha segments of Jodhpur, Barmer, Bikaner, Churu, Jhunjhunu, Jaipur Rural, Alwar, Bharatpur, Karauli-Dholpur, Dausa, Tonk-Sawai Madhopur. The BJP is in the lead in Jalore, Udaipur, Banswara, Chittorgarh, Rajsamand, Bhilwara, Kota and Jhalawar-Baran.

In Madhya Pradesh as well, the BJP is ceding ground, but not quite as much as in Rajasthan. In the 2014 general elections, the BJP had won 27 out of the 29 seats on offer. According to the calculations done by the India Today data team, the BJP could lose 11 Lok Sabha seats in MP and be left with only 16 of the 27 seats it had won in the state. The Congress has led on 12 seats in Madhya Pradesh, which would be an addition of 10 seats to its tally from 2014. The Congress is ahead in Morena, Bhind, Gwalior, Shahdol, Mandla, Chhindwara, Dewas, Ratlam, Dhar, Khargone and Betul. The BJP is holding on to its lead in Sagar, Tikamgarh, Damoh, Khajuraho, Satna, Rewa, Sidhi, Balaghat, Hoshangabad, Vidisha, Bhopal, Ujjain, Mandsour, Indore and Khandwa.

The BJP could have an uphill task ahead of it in Chhattisgarh as well. In 2014, the party had won 10 out of the 11 seats on offer in the last Lok Sabha polls. According to the trends picked up on December 11, the Lok Sabha picture in the state could reverse in 2019. The BJP could crash to 1 seat and the Congress could bag 10. The only Lok Sabha seat in the state which seems safe for the BJP is Bilaspur.

BATTLE FOR HINDI HEARTLAND: CONG

2014 LOK SABHA 2019 PROJECTION Madhya Pradesh 2 12 (+10) Rajasthan 0 12 (+12) Chhattisgarh 1 10 (+9) Total 3 33 (+30)

The BJP’s big hope is that the verdict in the assembly elections will have limited bearing on the Lok Sabha polls, since the dynamics of assembly and Lok Sabha elections are completely different. The BJP governments in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh were up against three terms of anti-incumbency while the Modi government has been in power for only one term.

BJP strategists argue that Prime Minister Narendra Modi remains way more popular than the Chief Ministers who have been voted out of power. The Political Stock Exchange (PSE) data compiled by Axis My India for the India Today Group bears this out.

In the tracking poll done in the month of September in Rajasthan only 35% of the respondents wanted Vasundhra Raje as the state’s chief minister while 57% indicated that they wanted to give Narendra Modi another chance to be Prime Minister in the 2019 polls. Even in a state like Madhya Pradesh, where the Chief Minster was quite popular, the PM’s popularity far exceeded that of the Chief Minister. 46% of the respondents wanted Shivraj Singh Chauhan as Chief Minister while 56% wanted Narendra Modi as PM. In Chhattisgarh the Prime Minister’s popularity was even higher. 59% of the respondents wanted Narendra Modi as PM while 41% wanted to give Dr Raman Singh another term in office.

The minimum gap between the popularity of the BJP’s Chief Ministerial candidate in these states and that of the Prime Minister is 10% and the maximum gap is 22%, which means it is likely that the image and performance of the Prime Minister will help the BJP perform better in the Lok Sabha Polls than in the assembly elections.

For the BJP, the 2014 general election results represent the peak of Narendra Modi’s popularity and the results delivered by voters on December 11 represent the depth to which the party can potentially fall in 2019.

BATTLE FOR HINDI HEARTLAND

2014 LOK SABHA 2019 PROJECTION BJP 62 30 (-32) Congress 3 33 (+30)

Realistically speaking, repeating the highs of 2014 after five years of being in power is highly improbable. The extent to which the BJP is able to stem the decline in the Hindi heartland will determine how steep the 2019 asking rate is in areas outside the core strongholds of the BJP.

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