Who will rule the Fort?

That in itself might be inappropriate as the seat of the Government of Tamil Nadu has moved from Fort St. George (the first British fortress in India) to the hastily built (and opened by the PM with backdrops like a Cinema set) new Secretariat building nearby.

However, today is the last day of campaigning for the TN State Assembly Elections scheduled for day after - 13th April.  The Election Commission has warned that no opinion polls should be published after 5 p.m. today and the reason for my quick post now - before the deadline.  Not that I think that this blog falls under the EC directive as it doesn’t publish any poll or survey, but is just an analysis of such polls/surveys; however it is better to be safe than sorry.

update:  Also read ‘Who will storm the Fort?’ for info about updates

So, who is going to win this elections?   The ruling DMK, Congress, PMK, VCK combine or the opposing ADMK, DMDK, CPI, CPM alliance?

• I am not going to predict the winners, because in the 2009 General Elections for the Parliament, my outlook was completely wrong.  I tipped 25 -14 winning combination for the ADMK, and the results were the other way around.
• So this time, I am going to predict the probability of ‘losing’ seats - to see whether this bottom-up approach works.
• Unlike in 1996, when there was a palpable wave of disgust against ADMK, there just doesn’t seem to be any against the DMK.  True there is
  • the famed ‘anti-incumbency’ factor,
  • the corruption headache, especially with the DMK’s alleged involvement in the 2G spectrum scam,
  • the chronic electric power shortage,
  • the volatile increase in food price, and
  • the perceived accumulation of wealth, conspicuous consumption and poor performance by the ruling party’s office bearers .
• However, vehement disgust at the ruling combine is absent, though there is a larger than usual anti-incumbency mood.
• My favourite party, the Congress has really fumbled this time.  Their candidate selection has been ‘strange’ - the fiasco in Mylapore and a man allegedly involved in Kidney racket as candidate in TVK Nagar - both in the city of Chennai - is horrendous. 
• If those are not bizarre enough, brand new ‘Youth Wing’ candidates have been allotted constituencies about which they have absolutely no idea. Seems the state faction leaders had targeted specific seats for ‘their’ candidates and had to give up to the ‘Youth’ power in the end.  Whatever, it is puzzling to see 3 or 5 time MLAs competing again.
• The principal national opposition party the BJP seems to have played their cards well.  Though a very marginal player in the state, they have upped the ante, (after no one was willing to ally with them) and are fighting a large number of seats.  With aggressive campaigning and participation by their national leaders, they seemingly want to play ‘spoilers’, show a fair amount of ‘vote share’ (like 3 or 4 %) for bargaining in future elections.  Is it a BJP version of the ‘Rahul-plan’?

That said, the Tamil bi-weekly magazine, Junior Vikatan published an opinion poll/survey yesterday and projects a comfortable 141 seat majority to the opposing ADMK combine (in the 234 member house).  There was only one niggling point.

One day before, on Saturday, the daily Dinamalar had projected its opinion poll/survey for the Tirunelveli district.  In that projection of Kadayanallur constituency, the sitting MLA, Peter Alphonse was tipped to lose.  The Junior Vikatan poll has projected a win for him!

Which set me off to cross check the results with each other.

And the results are startling.  It seems there isn’t a clear idea of what exactly is happening on the ground and these polls, surveys and projections are ‘magnified’ in proportion to the distance of the constituencies from Chennai.
:-D

50 52 constituencies are ‘too-close-to-call’ by Dinamalar, (cells marked Light Turquoise) of which Junior Vikatan has given

• 19 20 to DMK (67),
• 7 to Congress (15),
• 1 2 to PMK (7) and
• 2 to VCK (2)
• 15 to ADMK (106),
• 2 to DMDK (17),
• 1 to CPI/CPM (15) and
• 3 to Others

which means that 30 32 of DMK+ and 20 of ADMK+ constituencies are too-close-to-call and there could be either a last-minute-switch or an ‘unknown’ factor.
:-P

Even worse, there are 18 constituencies where Dinamalar (cells marked Tan) has projected opposite results to Junior Vikatan

• 10 of DMK,
• 1 of Congress
• 7 of ADMK

which means that in 18 constituencies, two polls/surveys have arrived at two opposite conclusions.
Thus a total of 68 (50 + 18) 70 (52 + 18) out of 234 constituencies (29%) (30%) cannot be called with certainty this close to polling day.  No wonder TN has been bucking the psephologists for last 3 elections.  There is a niggling feeling that it is going to be true even in this elections and the results are going to be much, much close, like, 

• The Congress, DMDK & CPI/CPM ending with 15 seats each,
• PMK + VC + all others combined together with 10 seats,
• ADMK and DMK splitting 179 seats with ADMK ahead in 5 to 10 seats.
• Oh, with the margin of error at 5%.

Which would really set the cat among the pigeons.  Of course any one can try and pull a stunt for ‘sympathy vote’ and it may yet work - with 29% 30% confusion, even a marginal swing of 3% might be enough to get to the magical 118.
The Google spreadsheet and this post is being uploaded at 1600 hours to beat the EC directive, and errors will be corrected as necessary. 
;-P
As for whom I will vote for - it is strictly between me and the Electronic Voting Machine.  Last, but not the least, get out and vote on Election day - If I can spend 5 hours to tabulate and cross check this spreadsheet, the least you can do is to spend half-an-hour to vote.
PS:  I never realised that there are 2 Athurs (1 in Kallakuruchi/Salem - which I knew about and 1 in Dindugal)

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