I have not commented on Prashant Kishor because he is not worth commenting on. He is a media creation, given far more credit than is due. During his time with Modi and elsewhere, he drew on the work of a talented team at IPAC, created fancy powerpoint presentations out of the insights the team put together, and presented it as his own work. Sunil Kanugolu, who was the mastermind of the data ops at IPAC, operated in the shadows and PK promptly stole the sunlight.
PK is, always was, a BJP mole. His famous presentation to the Congress, which I have seen, was a whole lot of BS -- basic realpolitik dressed up in a fancy PPT. And he wanted to be made president of the party or at least the lone gen-sec, and to have control over all aspects. The classic Trojan Horse -- to Rahul Gandhi's credit, he saw through it and kicked him out the door.
As for his being right -- there are elections that are easy to call. Everyone gets them right. That said, even when the result was obvious, he has called it wrong -- never mind Telangana and Himachal, Karnataka was blindingly obvious (I can put you in touch with people to whom, well before counting day, I'd said Congress would be 135 plus or minus five -- that they ended up exactly on 135 was just a fluke, but the outcome was apparent) And yet, the day before the counting, he was insisting that the BJP would sweep.
Here again, Kishor is pushing a narrative. This week he says the BJP will cross 300 -- anyone who has followed the course of this election will laugh.
As for sticking his neck out, so what? He has been wrong multiple times, and yet he is regularly trotted out as "India's number one political analyst" -- we go by hype, not results; he runs no risk.
As far as "my take" on his predictions go, with the sixth phase going on, my best estimate is that the BJP is likely to wind up around the 220 mark, plus or minus five, and that is if I am being very optimistic. They have bled too much, in too many states, to be able to make up -- and there is no more space to make up in these last two phases.
The cost of poor election prediction is extremely low in India. No one is really sticking their necks out when they are giving out numbers. Of course it doesn't mean that PK will be wrong - that is the beauty of it, even if he is right, it's unlikely because of some great political acumen. The biggest wild card right now really is how much EVMs can be manipulated or being manipulated.
While on that, the ECI has finally released the absolute vote count of the first five phases. It has not released booth-wise Form 17C numbers, however -- so the task for political parties is to collate the forms its agents have compiled, and compare that tally to the numbers the ECI has just put out. I know of one political party that has already begun that task; I am hoping all others will get to it asap.
Yeah, I saw this. IIRC, in an earlier article, I'd pointed out that the BJP was actually facing severe headwinds in 2019, and that in the final analysis, Balakot trumped everything else. The election was framed as muscular patriotism versus sceptical anti-nationalism, leaving the Opposition -- which by the way was never an "Opposition" in the collective sense of the word -- with no counter. It didn't matter that Balakot amounted to a couple of dead goats on the other side, and one plane lost and seven of our own killed in friendly fire -- the dushman ke ghar mein ghuske line trumped all else.
I don't think commentators, self included, truly grasped the impact of that narrative. I remember in the run-up spending time in Delhi, where I met this family of five: father, mother, three young children. The father and mother worked in a household, he as driver and she as house help. They loved that they were saving money because of the free electricity/water scheme, they were proud that their children were studying well in a good government school... but when I asked who they were voting for they said BJP. I asked how come, given that all the benefits they enjoyed came from the AAP government. The response was, we will vote for AAP in the state, but we need Modi at the centre to counter Pakistan. My pointing out that some of the worst terror strikes in our history had come on Modi's watch, but the argument didn't take -- the reply was, yeah, we were patient with them but now the time has come to take strong action and Modi is the only one capable of it.
It IS possible to get elections horribly wrong -- almost until the last minute, I read it totally wrong last time and for all I know I could be wrong now as well. But to my mind, the fundamental difference this time is narrative. In 2014 the BJP had the plank of the anti-corruption, pro-business, economically savvy crusader. That went bust by 2019, but then they had muscular nationalism. That doesn't exist now. They hoped to ride G20 and Ram Temple. That is clearly not working. And that is the problem: the Opposition has a narrative; the BJP is without one -- and this is the inverse of the last two polls.
I was thinking that you may comment on the interviews by PK (scores of them!), competing with Modi's 'interviews'...
He seems quite confident of BJP holding on to 300 odd seats...
He is putting his neck out, a la crane! That's a big risk he is taking considering that he is getting into politics, in Bihar to start with.
He has been more right than wrong with his predictions.
Would be interesting to know your take on PK's predictions on the results.
I have not commented on Prashant Kishor because he is not worth commenting on. He is a media creation, given far more credit than is due. During his time with Modi and elsewhere, he drew on the work of a talented team at IPAC, created fancy powerpoint presentations out of the insights the team put together, and presented it as his own work. Sunil Kanugolu, who was the mastermind of the data ops at IPAC, operated in the shadows and PK promptly stole the sunlight.
PK is, always was, a BJP mole. His famous presentation to the Congress, which I have seen, was a whole lot of BS -- basic realpolitik dressed up in a fancy PPT. And he wanted to be made president of the party or at least the lone gen-sec, and to have control over all aspects. The classic Trojan Horse -- to Rahul Gandhi's credit, he saw through it and kicked him out the door.
As for his being right -- there are elections that are easy to call. Everyone gets them right. That said, even when the result was obvious, he has called it wrong -- never mind Telangana and Himachal, Karnataka was blindingly obvious (I can put you in touch with people to whom, well before counting day, I'd said Congress would be 135 plus or minus five -- that they ended up exactly on 135 was just a fluke, but the outcome was apparent) And yet, the day before the counting, he was insisting that the BJP would sweep.
Here again, Kishor is pushing a narrative. This week he says the BJP will cross 300 -- anyone who has followed the course of this election will laugh.
As for sticking his neck out, so what? He has been wrong multiple times, and yet he is regularly trotted out as "India's number one political analyst" -- we go by hype, not results; he runs no risk.
As far as "my take" on his predictions go, with the sixth phase going on, my best estimate is that the BJP is likely to wind up around the 220 mark, plus or minus five, and that is if I am being very optimistic. They have bled too much, in too many states, to be able to make up -- and there is no more space to make up in these last two phases.
Among all the points in your detailed response, the one I like the best is that emphatic way in which you have mentioned the number of 220 for BJP !!
Looking forward to your being right again as were about Karnataka results!
The cost of poor election prediction is extremely low in India. No one is really sticking their necks out when they are giving out numbers. Of course it doesn't mean that PK will be wrong - that is the beauty of it, even if he is right, it's unlikely because of some great political acumen. The biggest wild card right now really is how much EVMs can be manipulated or being manipulated.
While on that, the ECI has finally released the absolute vote count of the first five phases. It has not released booth-wise Form 17C numbers, however -- so the task for political parties is to collate the forms its agents have compiled, and compare that tally to the numbers the ECI has just put out. I know of one political party that has already begun that task; I am hoping all others will get to it asap.
"PS: Prashant Kishor is wrong. Period.
Interesting article from Vivek Kaul. I don’t think 2019 and 2024 are really comparable without taking into account Puliwama and Balakot. Still…..https://www.newslaundry.com/2019/06/04/how-i-got-the-2019-election-all-wrong
Yeah, I saw this. IIRC, in an earlier article, I'd pointed out that the BJP was actually facing severe headwinds in 2019, and that in the final analysis, Balakot trumped everything else. The election was framed as muscular patriotism versus sceptical anti-nationalism, leaving the Opposition -- which by the way was never an "Opposition" in the collective sense of the word -- with no counter. It didn't matter that Balakot amounted to a couple of dead goats on the other side, and one plane lost and seven of our own killed in friendly fire -- the dushman ke ghar mein ghuske line trumped all else.
I don't think commentators, self included, truly grasped the impact of that narrative. I remember in the run-up spending time in Delhi, where I met this family of five: father, mother, three young children. The father and mother worked in a household, he as driver and she as house help. They loved that they were saving money because of the free electricity/water scheme, they were proud that their children were studying well in a good government school... but when I asked who they were voting for they said BJP. I asked how come, given that all the benefits they enjoyed came from the AAP government. The response was, we will vote for AAP in the state, but we need Modi at the centre to counter Pakistan. My pointing out that some of the worst terror strikes in our history had come on Modi's watch, but the argument didn't take -- the reply was, yeah, we were patient with them but now the time has come to take strong action and Modi is the only one capable of it.
It IS possible to get elections horribly wrong -- almost until the last minute, I read it totally wrong last time and for all I know I could be wrong now as well. But to my mind, the fundamental difference this time is narrative. In 2014 the BJP had the plank of the anti-corruption, pro-business, economically savvy crusader. That went bust by 2019, but then they had muscular nationalism. That doesn't exist now. They hoped to ride G20 and Ram Temple. That is clearly not working. And that is the problem: the Opposition has a narrative; the BJP is without one -- and this is the inverse of the last two polls.
Anyway, not much longer now.