🗳️👀D-day minus one: The method to the madness of General Elections in India

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Market Watch

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• All sectoral indices finished in the green, with capital goods, PSU Bank, oil & gas, power, and realty up 5-8%.

D-day minus one: The method to the madness of General Elections in India

As India braces for D-Day tomorrow, here's a primer to help you through. 

The primer: The 2024 Lok Sabha elections were held over six weeks, making it the second longest since 1951-52. 64.2 crore out of 96.8 crore registered voters voted for candidates in 542 constituencies.

• There are 543 constituencies, but BJP has already won Surat unopposed.
• A party needs a simple majority of 273 seats, also known as the magic number, to form a government; otherwise, the president will ask the leading party to form a coalition.

Exit polls predict a sweeping victory for the NDA with Chanakya predicting 400 seats for the NDA:

The counting: The counting of votes begins only at 8 AM, and the trends shown on the channels are numbers communicated at each round of counting. So you don’t have to trust any channel that shows ‘trends’ at 8:10 am. Wins are declared only after all rounds of counting are done by the Election Commission.

• In most close contest seats, either candidate can win so the trends do not reflect wins.
• The ECI website updates the results. Most channels have sources stationed at the booths; hence, there is a discrepancy in the trends reported by the EC and the channels. However, all channels shift to ECI trends post 12 pm.

Shortcuts to predicting which way the election is going: There are 543 seats but not all will tell you which way the election is headed. Here are the trends and patterns which will help you decide who is winning the battle, quicker.

Look at the Bellwether seats: These are seats that time and again have elected the party which forms the government at the Centre.

• Valsad seat in Gujarat has managed to predict this trend 16 out of 16 times even when India elected minority governments. Every winning candidate from the Valsad Lok Sabha seat has belonged to the party that formed the government at the Centre. Read about the 12 other seats that have predicted the winners.

Look at the Hindi heartland: Hindi heartland — Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, and Uttarakhand — accounts for a whopping 207 seats.

• Uttar Pradesh (80) and Madhya Pradesh (29) alone have 109 Lok Sabha seats so any party leading or sweeping these states is likely to have a major edge.

Any surprises expected? West Bengal, Odisha, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra are states which are expected to throw up surprise results either way.

• The exit polls have predicted major victories for the BJP in West Bengal and Odidha where regional parties Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress and Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal are in power.
• Exit polls have predicted major inroads for the BJP in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, even if they win 2-3 seats in these states, it would be considered a tremendous setback for the opposition.
• Maharashtra is a state where no one knows who they voted for because of the way the parties are split. BJP is in a coalition with Shiv Sena (Shinde faction) and the Ajit Pawar faction of NCP while the Congress is in the opposition with Uddhav Thackeray faction of Shiv Sena and Sharad Pawar faction of NCP. The results could be a precursor to the state elections which will be held later this year.

What are the markets saying? Indian stock markets soared as exit polls predicted a significant victory for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party, driving investor confidence to new heights. The market capitalization of BSE-listed companies surged by over Rs 11 lakh crore. The rally is likely to continue if the BJP-led NDA comes back to power. These are stocks which analysts have identified will perform well under Modi 3.0.

Glossary of terms to understand the election coverage: Here's a list of terms that anchors will use tomorrow and what they mean:

• Magic Number: A party needs a simple majority of 273 seats, this number is often referred to as the magic number.
• Hung Assembly: When no party gets a clear majority of 273 seats, leading to a hung parliament/assembly. Parties will have to form a coalition.
• Calling the Election: To call an election is to declare a party/bloc a winner unofficially. Anchors often 'call the election' when they feel confident that the trends can translate to wins.
• Early Trends: These are the preliminary results that emerge shortly after the counting of votes begins.
• Losing the Deposit: When a candidate fails to secure a minimum percentage of votes, typically one-sixth (16.67%) of the total valid votes polled.
• Strongholds: Seats that traditionally vote for one party or one candidate over three consecutive times in a row.
• Kingmaker: Independent parties and those not part of coalitions are often called kingmakers. In the case of a hung assembly, they become the deciding factor in determining which alliance will form the government.
• Close Contests: Seats where the winning margin, the difference in votes between the winning candidate and the runners-up, is less than 3,000 votes.
• Anti-incumbency: Trends that are unfavourable to the ruling party. In many states, there is a trend of voting out incumbent governments, i.e., governments in power.

Pic du jour

A thief broke into a house intending to rob it, but due to the heatwave, he fell asleep with the AC on. He was eventually woken up by the police.

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