Statewide and National runup to 2014 General elections

[jamwal]

interview of locals in Amritsar on tv.
anchor asks.. why'd you vote for Jaitley as he is from outside Amritsar ?



locals reply... Hai to Indian hii. local amritsari hone na hone ka koi fark nahi padtaa.

Translation.. He is an Indian afterall. Being local Doesnt matter

[munna]

Echoed by HT
Amarinder’s unusual ally in battle against Jaitley: BJP’s Sidhu camp

As he takes on BJP stalwart Arun Jaitley in Amritsar, former Punjab chief minister and now Congress Lok Sabha candidate Capt Amarinder Singh seems to have found an unusual ally in the opposition camp.
Divided sharply over cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Sidhu, who was replaced by the BJP despite being the three-time sitting MP, some factions of the Amritsar BJP are providing Amarinder much-needed feedback and dope on Jaitley, who is contesting his first LS poll.

Even if I don’t talk about Sidhu, the mandate in Amritsar is going to be not against Jaitley but against the BJP faction represented by minister Anil Joshi and the Akali faction represented by Bikram Singh Majithia who together stopped all development of Amritsar to humble Sidhu and pump up their own egos. Now, while Majithia is hated in the villages, Joshi is hated in the urban areas of the constituency.”

“What will Jaitley tell people? It was his party’s MP (Sidhu) in Amritsar and his party’s government that was in power in Punjab, but no development took place in seven years. Suddenly, Jaitley has fallen in love with everything Amritsari. But in his meetings, he is fumbling on issues concerning Punjab and Amritsar.

[muraliravi]

Okay, I looked into the sample profile of Assam in the CSDS survey, and now I am beginning to get why they are getting such high vote shares for the Congress.

http://www.lokniti.org/pdf/TRACKE-State ... rofile.pdf

Total sample size for Assam is 462 (over 14 constituencies, each of which have their own character). The dynamics of upper Assam even within are very different (Tezpur, believe me, is very different from Jorhat, which is a world apart from Lakhimpur). So, it translates into just around 33 people per Lok Sabha constituency, which in Assam, with its very fragmented communities, is not attractive. Now, if this is not very bad enough, there is the sampling part which should raise eyebrows.

You have a point here. Here is the link on the March Survey

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/assam-poll-t ... 30-81.html

They have significantly bumped up their sample size. If you scroll down, muslims are ridiculously over represented in the survey which may create some issues (but i assume they balance it out later)

[ramana]

Niran
Great report. Please upload pic of a typical NaMo poster we can also print and share amongst folks here.
In Uttar Khand didn't flood relief non-performance by Bahuguna impact Congress?

[Sanjay]

Niran - only 15 BJP seats in Gujarat ? What of the infighting in Punjab ? One other thing, Amit Shah (I know is record to date) but is he being realistic or getting carried away ?

[muraliravi]

Niran - only 15 BJP seats in Gujarat ? What of the infighting in Punjab ? One other thing, Amit Shah (I know is record to date) but is he being realistic or getting carried away ?

I am sure that was a typo sir. He probably meant 25.

[RajeshA]

Published on Apr 02, 2014
LS poll: Priya Dutt faces stiff challenge on North Central Mumbai seat: PTI

"She {Priya Dutt} has no local support. Only Bandra MLA Baba Siddique was present. There were no other MLAs and corporators," he claimed. He {Samajwadi Party candidate from Mumbai North Central parliamentary constituency, Farhan Azmi} expressed confidence that he would sail through in the elections with help of youth, muslims and non-muslim North Indians in the constituency.

Could be a strong vote-katua, enabling Poonam Mahajan to win there.

[Sanjay]

muraliravi, I am no "sir". Just me. I am getting a little confused here - what does all this tell us about an upper and lower estimate for the BJP/NDA in the election ?

Sonia's begging mullahs isn't going to hurt much (might even help) but what is of concern is the mixed signals from places like Punjab and Karnataka

[Shanmukh]

You have a point here. Here is the link on the March Survey

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/assam-poll-t ... 30-81.html

They have significantly bumped up their sample size. If you scroll down, muslims are ridiculously over represented in the survey which may create some issues (but i assume they balance it out later)

MuraliRavi-ji,
I looked at the figures quoted in the article, and I am beginning to wonder whether the whole exercise has any point at all. Let us take the AUDF vote as an example. I take it you will agree with me when I say that only Muslims vote for the AUDF (unless it is based on candidates like Moni Kumar Subba). Bengali Muslims constitute anywhere between 2/3 and 3/4 of the Muslim population.

In the last polling exercise in January, 15.9% of their sample was Muslim, and 10% of their sample (close to 2/3 of the Muslims) voted for the AUDF. This is what one would expect - Bengali Muslims voting for the AUDF en masse. Now, 39.8% of their sample is Muslim and again only 10% of their sample (roughly 1/4 of their sample) votes for AUDF? Why did Muslims change from 2/3 for AUDF to only 1/4 for AUDF in just two months? Unless the whole percentages are some estimates based on their samples based on some obscure algorithm (in which case there is no point to the whole exercise), how is it even possible to have the same vote shares for the AUDF when Muslim sampling varies from 15.8% of the sample, to 39.8% of the sample?

Judging by the wildly varying figures for Muslim vote for AUDF given here, I am inclined to believe that this whole Assam survey was filled up in the Delhi studios by a charlatan who does not know enough to lie convincingly. Not a word of it is to be believed.

[member_28108]

during chai biskoot time the talk was there would be at the most 10-15 seats for BJP in Karnataka. Third cousin once removed told that Pramod Muthalik actually tried to Bamboozle Prahlad Joshi (who is on a sticky election wicket) and tried to get a ticket for which he fell and this whole thing backfired.

[Supratik]

@nagesh

What is the possibility that the Bdeshi vote is moving to the INC to stop BJP coz a BJP Govt at center and state will cook their goose?

[muraliravi]

Nagesh ji,

I guess they know this and that is why they are not sticking their neck out and predicting seats for Assam.

[muraliravi]

IBNlive live

Gujarat BJP 55%
Cong 31%

BJP 20-26 seats
Cong 0-4 seats

Cong has some upper hand in some seats of central gujarat which is where they have some chance of picking up seats

[fanne]

I have been looking at these kinds of discrepancies in CSDS. Just that their vote% does not add up - for example, they give you state wise vote% of those favoring NM (with sample size) and then they give % at national numbers - These number vary (3-4%). They should not, either it is sloppy math or malice or some other thing (maybe they have don't know/wont say). Soon you start loosing confidence. But having said that, for lack of info, they are our best guess.

[muraliravi]

I have been looking at these kinds of discrepancies in CSDS. Just that their vote% does not add up - for example, they give you state wise vote% of those favoring NM (with sample size) and then they give % at national numbers - These number vary (3-4%). They should not, either it is sloppy math or malice or some other thing (maybe they have don't know/wont say). Soon you start loosing confidence. But having said that, for lack of info, they are our best guess.

That is correct. For example, in Gujarat choice of PM, Raga 15%, Sonia 6%, Kejri 5%, Modi 46%, where did the remaining 28% go????

[muraliravi]

CSDS Madhya Pradesh

BJP-52%
Cong - 28%

BJP 24-28 seats
Cong 1-5 Seats

Washout.

[fanne]

They also have a funny chart which goes like this - They have categories call - Urban, Rural, Upper Caste, OBC, Muslimes, College educated etc., all in one chart. I wonder who are those upper caste that are neither rural or urban (do they live on moon), also who are these urbans that do not have any education qualifier - either graduate or high school pass or ..looks like some one with mathematical intelligence of Suardesai was given a chart and he filled the numbers.

[pankajs]

What is this I read hanji? Anyone has the numbers?
-------------------------------->>
Yashwant Deshmukh ‏@cvoter 6m

Would be interesting to know reactions and comments of AAP on the latest AajTak poll in Delhi showing BJP sweep. Really really interesting.

[Shanmukh]

@nagesh

What is the possibility that the Bdeshi vote is moving to the INC to stop BJP coz a BJP Govt at center and state will cook their goose?

Supratik-ji,
Of the 14 seats in Assam, two (Karimganj, Dhubri) are Bangladeshi dominated, and one more (Barpeta) is borderline, so I think we can rule out these three for the BJP. Of the other seats where the Bangladeshi vote is considerable, there are six (Silchar, Kokrajhar, Guwahati, Mangaldoi, Nagaon, Kaliabor). Out of these six, BPPF (a BJP ally) is fighting in Kokrajhar, so does not count for our purposes. Mangaldoi and Nagaon are communally polarised. Muslims vote to stop the BJP every time, and Hindus vote BJP in every time. The BJP's problem in Nagaon is not Bangladeshis per se, but AGP which is desperately trying to cut BJP vote. Kaliabor is a seat which is contested by the Gogoi family and BJP is not going to win here. That leaves just two others where the Bangladeshis can try to vote strategically (Silchar and Guwahati). Both these are old BJP strongholds where strategic voting by Bangladeshis can hurt the BJP, I guess. But again, mass move by the Muslims towards the Congress usually leaves a mass move by Hindus towards the BJP.

[Mort Walker]

CSDS Madhya Pradesh

BJP-52%
Cong - 28%

BJP 24-28 seats
Cong 1-5 Seats

Washout.

1-5 seats in MP for INC is unacceptable. There are 3 seats - Guna (Scindia scion), Rewa and Kamal Nath's district where the INC has a chance. Modi's helicopter wasn't allowed to take off from Barelli to Rewa on time and he couldn't spend enough time there. I hope BJP cadres will get to the Rewa area and Modi can address them electronically. There is no reason why the BJP can't win all 29 seats in MP with a little effort. Polling dates are from April 10-24 with most of MP on April 17.

[muraliravi]

CSDS Maharashtra

NDA: 43% (24-30 seats)
UPA: 33% (16-22 seats)
MNS: 3%
AAP: 5%

Everyone is surprised that even with 10% gap, NDA is not way ahead in seats. Prof Karandikar said, it is because of the way the vote shares vary by region

[ramana]

Muraliravi, Want you to chew on this....

So You Think You're Smarter Than A CIA Agent
by Alix Spiegel, npr.org
April 2nd 2014
Listen to the Story
Morning EditionDownload

The morning I met Elaine Rich, she was sitting at the kitchen table of her small town home in suburban Maryland trying to estimate refugee flows in Syria.

It wasn't the only question she was considering, there were others:

Will North Korea launch a new multi-stage missile before May 1, 2014?

Will Russian armed forces enter Kharkiv, Ukraine, by May 10?Rich's answers to these questions would eventually be evaluated by the intelligence community, but she didn't feel much pressure because this wasn't her full-time gig.

"I'm just a pharmacist," she said. "Nobody cares about me, nobody knows my name, I don't have a professional reputation at stake. And it's this anonymity which actually gives me freedom to make true forecasts."

Rich does make true forecasts; she is curiously good at predicting future world events.

Better Than The Pros

For the last three years, Rich and 3,000 other average people have been quietly making probability estimates about everything from Venezuelan gas subsidies to North Korean politics as part of the Good Judgment Project, an experiment put together by three well-known psychologists and some people inside the intelligence community.

According to one report, the predictions made by the Good Judgment Project are often better even than intelligence analysts with access to classified information, and many of the people involved in the project have been astonished by its success at making accurate predictions.

When Rich, who is in her 60s, first heard about the experiment, she didn't think that she would be especially good at predicting world events. She didn't know a lot about international affairs and she hadn't taken much math in school.

But she signed up, got a little training in how to estimate probabilities from the people running the program, and then was given access to a website that listed dozens of carefully worded questions on events of interest to the intelligence community, along with a place for her to enter her numerical estimate of their likelihood.

"The first two years I did this, all you do is choose numbers," she told me. "You don't have to say anything about what you're thinking, you don't have to justify your numbers. You just choose numbers and then see how your numbers work out."

Rich's numbers worked out incredibly well.

She's in the top 1 percent of the 3,000 forecasters now involved in the experiment, which means that she has been classified as a super forecaster, someone who is extremely accurate when predicting stuff like:

Will there be a significant attack on Israeli territory before May 10, 2014?

The Super Forecasters

In fact, she's so good she's been put on a special team with other super forecasters whose predictions are reportedly 30 percent better than intelligence officers with access to actual classified information.

Rich and her teammates are that good even though all the information they use to make their predictions is available to anyone with access to the Internet.

When I asked if she goes to obscure Internet sources, she shook her head no.

"Usually I just do a Google search," she said.

And that raises this question:

How is it possible that a group of average citizens doing Google searches in their suburban town homes can outpredict members of the United States intelligence community with access to classified information?

How can that be?

Lessons From A Dead Ox

"Everyone has been surprised by these outcomes," said Philip Tetlock, one of the three psychologists who came up with the idea for the Good Judgment Project. The other two are Barbara Mellers and Don Moore.

For most of his professional career, Tetlock studied the problems associated with expert decision making. His book Expert Political Judgment is considered a classic, and almost everyone in the business of thinking about judgment speaks of it with unqualified awe.

All of his study brought Tetlock to at least two important conclusions.

First, if you want people to get better at making predictions you need to keep score of how accurate their predictions turn out to be, so they have concrete feedback.

But also, if you take a large crowd of different people with access to different information and pool their predictions, you will be in much better shape than if you rely on a single very smart person, or even a small group of very smart people.

"The wisdom of crowds is a very important part of this project, and it's an important driver of accuracy," Tetlock said.

The wisdom of crowds is a concept first discovered by the British statistician Francis Galton in 1906.

Galton was at a fair where about 800 people had tried to guess the weight of a dead ox in a competition. After the prize was awarded, Galton collected all the guesses so he could figure out how far off the mark the average guess was.

It turned out that most of the guesses were really bad — way too high or way too low. But when Galton averaged them together, he was shocked:

The dead ox weighed 1,198 pounds. The crowd's average: 1,197.

Finding The True Signal

"There's a lot of noise, a lot of statistical random variation," Tetlock said. "But it's random variation around a signal, a true signal, and when you add all of the random variation on each side of the true signal together, you get closer to the true signal."

In other words, there are errors on every side of the mark, but there is a truth at the center that people are responding to, and if you average a large number of predictions together, the errors will end up canceling each other out, and you are left with a more accurate guess.

That is the wisdom of the crowd.

The point of the Good Judgment Project was to figure out if what was true for the dead ox is true for world events as well.

It is.

In fact, Tetlock and his team have even engineered ways to significantly improve the wisdom of the crowd — all of which greatly surprised Jason Matheny, one of the people in the intelligence community who got the experiment started.

"They've shown that you can significantly improve the accuracy of geopolitical forecasts, compared to methods that had been the state of the art before this project started," he said.

What's so challenging about all of this is the idea that you can get very accurate predictions about geopolitical events without access to secret information. In addition, access to classified information doesn't automatically and necessarily give you an edge over a smart group of average citizens doing Google searches from their kitchen tables.

How Will It Be Used?

Matheny doesn't think there's any risk that it will replace intelligence services as they exist.

"I think it's a complement to methods rather than a substitute," he said.

Matheny said that though Good Judgment predictions have been extremely accurate on the questions they've asked so far, it's not clear that this process will work in every situation.

"There are likely to be other types of question for which open source information isn't likely to be enough," he added.

In a couple of weeks, the Good Judgment Project will start recruiting more forecasters for its experiment, and Elaine Rich, the suburban Maryland pharmacist, thinks that more people like her should give it a shot.

"Health care people are not likely to be involved in international forecasting," she said. "But I have a feeling that many of them would be good at it."

- The average of all those polls will be better than any one poll. Galston
And we need BRF to have our own Good Judgement Project in GDF.

First need to understand the lessons in probability estimates.

Before that you can average the polls so far and get to the central core.

[Mort Walker]

^^^I would argue that the CSDS polling for the 2013 assembly elections was pretty close.

[Mort Walker]

Muraliravi,

Taking the worst case of CSDS polling so far, what numbers do you have for the BJP?

[nachiket]

CSDS Maharashtra

NDA: 43% (24-30 seats)
UPA: 33% (16-22 seats)
MNS: 3%
AAP: 5%

Everyone is surprised that even with 10% gap, NDA is not way ahead in seats. Prof Karandikar said, it is because of the way the vote shares vary by region

Well if these numbers are anywhere close to reality, it is much better than I had personally dreamed of. The Cong-NCP hold has been unshakeable in MH for several years. Even 26/11 and R.R. Patil episode didn't loosen it.

[harbans]

Looking from an easy perspective. The best combinations:

3 States that can give BJP a 100 lotus's: UP -Bihar-Guj (50-25-25)
5 States that can give BJP a 100 lotus's: ?
So 8 states can give BJP a 200.
Then concentrate on another 10 that could give a 100.
That is the 300 figure.
The rest is bonus.

[nachiket]

BJP has to make a killing in UP, Bihar, Gujarat, Raj and MP if they want to get anywhere close to 200. The rest either contribute too few seats or are too unpredictable. They could have counted on KA once, not anymore.

[fanne]

Mosrt, any survey you pick, they are varying in state details, but BJP final numbers are above 200.

[harbans]

3 States Century: UP-Bihar-Guj = 100

5 States Century: CH=MP-MH-RJ-AP = 100

So 8 States above could yield 200 seats.

Next 50 seats come from these 6:

6 scoring a Half Century: KT-HIM-UK-TN-PJ-NE =50.

Rest need 22 seats.

[Mort Walker]

Delhi, Himachal, J&K, Utaarkhand, Haryana, Punjab will be 25-28.

[nachiket]

3 States Century: UP-Bihar-Guj = 100

5 States Century: CH=MP-MH-RJ-AP = 100

So 8 States above could yield 200 seats.

Next 50 seats come from these 6:

6 scoring a Half Century: KT-HIM-UK-TN-PJ-NE =50.

Rest need 22 seats.

Are you talking about NDA or only BJP?

[harbans]

Him, UK, Punjab already included in the 250 lst post Mort..need 22 from the rest. Del/ TN/ WB/ KL etc.

Lets talk NDA to clarify..

[nachiket]

Him, UK, Punjab already included in the 250 lst post Mort..need 22 from the rest. Del/ TN/ WB/ KL etc.

Lets talk NDA to clarify..

Add Odisha. Naveen Patnaik is your man. BJP needs to get him to join in somehow. He had 14 last time. Probably won't be too different this time.

[Atri]

i reiterate my prediction onlee..

UP-46
Bihar-27
MH-18
MP-25
GJ-23
RJ-23
UK-4
JH-10
CG-9
KN-15
Total - 200 (only for BJP)

from rest of country - 15-25 seats. I spy with my roving eye a figure of 220-230 at least (only for BJP). add to that 10 seats of shivsena and 5 of akali dal which are ideologically stable partners of BJP and we have 240-245 seats. remaining 30-35 seats will come from tdp, and other less committed allies who won't allow UCC to happen.

and I still feel that what happened in delhi assembly might happen again and BJP might be forced to sit in opposition for few months before the third-front backed by INC screws up royally thus earning the sobriquet of modern ghatotkacha.

[muraliravi]

Muraliravi,

Taking the worst case of CSDS polling so far, what numbers do you have for the BJP?

CSDS Seats

BJP+LJP= 21-29, So lets say BJP 18-25 (includes rlsp, but since they are fighting on BJP symbol, we can take them as part of BJP)
Jharkhand, they have not projected seats, but based on the huge vote share, must be 9-11
Orissa 3-7
WB 0-1
Assam, based on their vote shares, BJP has to be just 1-2
Andhra 0-0
Tamil Nadu, just for BJP alone 1-2
Karnataka 7-13
Maharashtra, if we interpolate just for BJP, 16-19
MP 24-28
Gujarat 20-26
CG, based on the vote shares 8-9

So as of now, just BJP alone (not NDA) worst case is 98.

Lets say the below are worst case numbers in the below states (based on CSDS previous predictions and other trends)

RJ - 20
UP - 37
Haryana - 1
Del - 3
Punjab - 2
Himachal - 2
Uttarakhand - 4
JK - 0
Goa and UT's - 3

Thats 72 seats. Add to the 98, BJP's worst should be around 170.

At least if you go by csds, they need to be really unlucky to get 170, even if you take mid point numbers, they will cross 185.

[Mort Walker]

Thanks!

[harbans]

Seeing the need to incorporate Nepal into India. 25 seats that will get BJP 20 plus each time.

[muraliravi]

Seeing the need to incorporate Nepal into India. 25 seats that will get BJP 20 plus each time.

Do you have a machine that can read my mind??

[Atri]

Seeing the need to incorporate Nepal into India. 25 seats that will get BJP 20 plus each time.

exactly my thoughts.. Nepal needs to do a ghar-waapsi.. but is India ready for that.. I hope NaMo starts the necessary process and orders R&AW... Nepal and bhutan should come in asap, Nepal being of highest priority.

[harbans]

Do you have a machine that can read my mind??

Don't tell me that struck you too.. and Atri ji too