Calling the Trivandrum 2009 Loksabha Election - Pre Poll

Our prediction has been updated with our post poll edit at the bottom

In the first of our predictions Nair’s Tea Stall takes a look at the Thiruvanthapuram constituency which is attracting national interest due to the candidature of Dr. Shashi Tharoor from INC (I). It also features 4 other prominent national parties in the fray represented by CPI candidate Mr.Ramachandran Nair, BJP candidate P.K Krishnadas, BSP candidate Mr. Neelalohithadasan Nadar and NCP candidate Mr. Gangadharan.

The reorganized Thiruvananthapuram Loksabha constituency consists of 7 assembly segments now, Kazhakoottam, Thiruvanthapuran, Vattiyoorkavu, Nemom, Kovalam, Neyyatinkara and Parassala. For a very nice read on the under currents of politics in the constituency please visit TVM talkies which has very nice write up.

This post is quite lengthy and will analyze in detail each of the candidates (BSP, BJP, NCP, CPI and INCI respectively) chances and finally make our predictions

The NADAR effect.

The talk around town is that Mr. Nadar could play the spoiler in this election. Some even call him a ‘dark horse’. Well a dark horse is someone who has an outside chance of winning. Quite frankly, our eminent Mr. Nadar does not have any shot at winning, so spoiler would be more apt. The million dollar question here is “spoiler for whom?”. The commonly held notion is that Mr.Nadar is going to eat into the UDF vote bank. Tea stall takes a detailed look at the “NADAR effect”.

Mr. Nadar polled ~ 28000 votes in Kovalam in 2006 Assembly election pushing the LDF candidate to third. In spite of the anti-incumbency against the congress and an all Kerala LDF vote swing, the congress candidate won courtesy Mr. Nadar. The LDF vote percentage went down from 47 % to 24 % while the Congress went down from 45 to 34 %. So in spite of the sex scandal being at its peak, the incredible Mr.Nadar pulled in a total of 28000 votes. Tea stall is not convinced that Mr. Nadar would generally affect the congress more than the LD, the numbers do not support this, in fact it suggests the opposite. If at all he would affect both fronts equally if not the LDF more.

Now coming to the BSP, Mayawati’s elephant contested in all the 8 assembly constituencies in the 2006 Assembly elections and polled a total of 12000 votes. That is impressive for a new comer. So Mr. Nadar starts with a base vote of ~ 40,000 votes. He could pull in another 25000-30000 easily from the southern constituencies for a total of 65-80,000 votes with an average impact campaign. A high impact one could see him get almost up to 100,000 votes. Not enough to win but expect Mr. ‘Neelan’ Nadar to come in third pushing BJP to Fourth.

BJP from promise back to obscurity.

The story of the BJP in Trivandrum reflects its sad existence and pathetic leadership. From 228,000 votes to 36000 votes in a matter of a year and a half. The BJP in Kerala has infighting in its ranks, too many groups and a few good men. In fact it is almost like the congress without any real power or a single victory in any election of consequence. Instead of using its huge vote bank spread across Kerala and making strategic alliances to raise a third alternative, the BJP has chosen to play it safe and stick to its RSS roots. As a consequence it has not been able to translate any of its national gains over the years into anything substantial in Kerala. The BJP has not been able to shed its communal tag and in Kerala where so called ‘secularism’ seems to be all important, the BJP is stuck with its 8-10 % vote share. The people especially in Trivandrum seem to getting fed up of the BJP. A look at its numbers from the past reflects this.

Election Votes % 1991 80566 11.33 1996 74904 10.63 1998 94303 12.39 1999 158221 20.93 2004 228052 29.86 2005 36690 4.83

It is worth noting that even in 1991 when the BJP had no real chance to form a government, it got 80,000 votes, which steadily went up to a whopping ~ 30 % by 2004. Clearly Mr. Rajagopal had shed the communal tag and given TVM hopes of having a cabinet minister if the BJP was voted into power again (as most pundits and opinion polls suggested). In 2005, with the people aware that BJP was clearly going to be in opposition and lack of any real effort from the BJP to campaign for its candidate (No less that C.K. Padmanabhan, one its prominent leaders in Kerala) it had its most dismal performance in Trivandrum for the past two decades. A look at the total votes polled by the BJP in the 2001 and 2006 assembly elections is more revealing. The people who vote for the BJP for assembly elections (where its chance of winning is 0 are considered by Tea stall to be its base vote).

In 2001 it polled ~ 56,000 votes in the 8 constituencies while in 2006 it polled ~ 38,000 votes. A vote erosion of 18,000 votes. Or 32 % lesser than in 2001. In these 5 years the BJP seems to have lost almost a third of its core vote bank in TVM.

Having said that, the BJP has fielded its state president Mr. P.K. Krishnadas and has been campaigning more actively this time around (it could not have gotten any worse than 2005 honestly). So tea stall expects the BJP to gain some of its lost ground and poll close to 80,000 votes this time around. It could very well end up fourth in this election.

NCP

Mr.Gangadharan of the NCP is the fifth major contestant in Trivandrum. Quite frankly tea stall is clueless about his impact from the simple fact that this is the first time the NCP is contesting independently and Karunakaran is back in congress now. So the votes NCP garner would be a reflection of Mr. Murali’s (does he have any?) influence in TVM. Well if the BSP can garner 12000 in the last assembly election and a tainted guy like Mr.Nadar can get 28000 votes in Kovalam, even with its low key campaign Mr. Gangadharan could get more than 10,000 votes. Now this will hurt the congress as these would definitely have been congress votes. The congress and Mr. Tharoor would be hoping the NCP factor remains low key.

CPI

The left has won the TVM seats the past two elections. Let’s take a look at its numbers.

Election Votes % 1991 290602 40.85 1996 312622 44.38 1998 322031 42.33 1999 273905 36.23 2004 286057 37.45 2005 390324 51.41

Clearly the left has a vote base of at least ~ 270,000 votes or 37 % (1999 elections when LDF was ruling Kerala, anti-incumbency was high, and the left was considered a non significant actor at the national stage) A look at the 2001 and 2006 assembly elections also tell a significant story in 2001(won 1/8, the one being Mr. Nadar), the left polled 370,000 votes while in 2006 (won 5/8) it polled less 356,000 in the eight constituencies. Now the polling percentages were significantly higher in 2001 and the UDF emerged victorious. So the left has a very loyal vote bank and if the polling percentages are low in this election, expect Mr. Ramachandran Nair to romp home.

INC (I)

The Indian national congress last won the election in Trivandrum in 1999 and before that in 1998 when ‘Leader’ Karunakaran stood in TVM. Let’s take a look at its numbers

Election	Votes	%
1991	334272	46.99
1996	291820	41.43
1998	337429	44.35
1999	288390	38.15
2004	231454	30.3
2005	316124	41.63

Unlike the LDF the UDF has a much more widely varying range with its votes in 2004 falling as low as 30 % and very narrowly avoiding being in third place to the BJP. This is also when there was lot of infighting within the congress and in 2004 and 2005 it clearly resulted in its loss as large amounts of Karunakaran group voted for the LDF. With things being patched up now Tea stall expects a much united show from the INC in spite of there being groups disgruntled by Mr.Tharoor’s candidature. In the 2001 and 2006 elections the UDF won 6/8 and 3/8 seats respectively. The UDF polled 425,000 and 328,000 respectively. A higher polling percentage clearly favors the UDF.

2009 Trivandrum election predictions.

Tea stall appreciates everyone who has had the patience to read so much and reach here. Looking at the numbers Tea stall is itself a little confused, but anyway it will stick its neck out and make a call. So here goes.

Tea stall predicts a UDF win if the polling percentage is above 68 % and an LDF win if it is below 63 %. The contest is extremely tight within this range (where the polling percentage is most likely to be) After April 16, this section will updated with our most current prediction.

Election	Total Votes	%
1991	711350	68.9
1996	704408	64.57
1998	760823	65.74
1999	755941	63.18
2004	763829	68.7
2005	759237	67

Tea stall expects the polling % to be around 66% and about 730,000 (Total votes 1102476 down from 1112571 in 2004) votes to be cast.

The southern (rural) constituencies are expected to vote in a pattern similar to previous elections with the BSP getting a significant amount of votes here. The urban constituencies have a huge % of voters who will shift allegiance based on current issues. In the past they have always voted for a candidate who has the best chance of becoming a minister in the next election as evidenced by the leads Mr. Karunakaran and Mr Rajagopal secured in the city constituencies. This amounts to almost 150,000 votes. A significant amount of this vote should go to Mr. Tharoor and adding onto his base congress vote, this really is the congress’s election to lose. That they are almost managing to do so is another story. So far the campaign has been very lackluster which could lead to a low voter turnout. The LDF supporters have been vehemently throwing allegations of Zionism, American imperialism and whole lot of nonsense completely irrelevant to the issues facing TVM and the national scene. The communal charge did not deter this vote bank from voting for Mr. Rajagopal in the last election and it should not deter them from voting Mr. Tharoor this time around.

So here is our break down.

Party	Votes	~ %
INC (I)	285,000	39
CPI	275,000	37
BSP	85,000	12
BJP	75,000	10.5
NCP	10,000	1.5
Total	730,000	100

As things stand right now, Mr. Tharoor should have a very narrow lead of about 2 % over Mr. Nair. Very often in Kerala candidates win with a margin of 10,000 or less which is approximately a % and a half and considered a substantial majority.

Disclaimer: It is quite common to give a percentage error of +- 3 % to any statistical prediction of this sort and since our prediction here falls within that range, it is quite possible that Mr. Nair can win with a 10,000 vote majority. The very fact that this election is close is a credit to the LDF machinery. The UDf should have romped home in this one. Very often numbers can tell you what you want to see, so I ask the readers to give me their predictions.

The numbers will be updated after polling on April 16^th.

P.S: The ‘Poland’ prathibhasam

As Mr. Sathyan Anthikad and Sreenivasan said in Sandesham :“Poland ine thottu kalikkallu”. If Israel, Zionism, American Imperialism and Coca Cola can have an unforeseen impact (a small swing of 3 % will do) on the TVM elections, then tea stall will have egg on its face and have learnt an important lesson.

2009 Trivandrum election predictions. Post Poll Edit on April 17th

In this second part of our prediction of Trivandrum results, we take a look at the votes polled, the polling percentage and makes a final call. Here is a look at how the polling this year compare with previous elections.

The polling percentages for Trivandrum is being reported by the Kerala Election Commission as 65.731% and the detailed breakdown is as follows:

Kazhakkoottam	94712	147166	64.24%
Vattiyoorkavu	96859	158092	63.43%
Thiruvananthapuram	100437	162232	59.68%
Nemom	100012	155112	64.38%
Parassala	123508	176495	69.88%
Kovalam	116383	170724	68.14%
Neyyatinkara	103012	148265	69.4%
	734,924	1118086	65.73%

This is along our predicted polling which was 66% and 730,000 votes. So does our predictions given above still hold ?? Tea Stall would like to take this opportunity to make some edits to those numbers, though it does not change by much

Since there was higher polling in Parassala, Neyyatinkara and Kovalam where Mr. Neelan Nadar has higher influence, we expect BSP to poll more than we predicted. Even though we expect the BSP to eat into both LDF and UDF votes equally, for making this projection we have assumed the BSP to affect the UDF more. If the BSP votes go down by about 20,000 votes it should be split 12,000 – 8,000 in favor of UDF and the UDF majority will increase.

Contrary to general perceptions that the voting in the city was comparatively less, Tea stall thinks the voting was actually higher than usual. Compare these numbers. The City corporation wards are split over Thiruvananthapuram, Vattiyoorkavu and Nemom constituencies and they have actually polled better than in 2006 assembly elections where Trivandrum North (Vattiyoorkavu) polled 61%, West (Thiruvananthapuram) 51% and East, (Nemom) polled 60%. Tea Stall still expects UDF and Mr.Tharoor to do well here.

Here is out final breakdown.

We expect BSP and Mr. Nadar to poll more than 100,000 Votes. BJP and NCP should account for 80,000 votes in all. CPI used to have a base vote of 275,000, which will slightly go down because of the “Nadar” effect.

Party	Votes	~ %
INC (I)	278,000	37.7
CPI	267,000	36.3
BSP	110,000	15
BJP	72,000	10
NCP	8,000	1
Total	735,000	100

Tea Stall stands by its initial prediction of a UDF and a Mr.Tharoor victory by a majority of around 10,000 votes or higher.

P.S. The Disclaimer above still hold true.

Data source: http://keralaassembly.org/