Why BJP should be worried about Gujarat Assembly election results

There are three reasons why the BJP should be worried about performing "badly" in the Gujarat Assembly elections.

Gandhinagar, Dec 18: If predictions of all exit polls are to be believed, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is all set to form its government both in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.

On Monday, the Assembly election results of the two states will be declared. The Assembly elections for 182 seats in Gujarat were held on December 9 and 14 and in Himachal Pradesh people voted for the 68-member Assembly on November 9.

While Gujarat has been under the saffron rule for the last 22 years, in the hill state, the Congress is facing anti-incumbency.

However, a few political analysts warned that all is not hunky dory for the BJP in its home turf Gujarat and issued "warning signals". According to NDTV, there are three reasons why the BJP should be worried about performing "badly" in the Gujarat Assembly elections.

First, drop in women's turnout (as women are bigger supporters of the BJP than men). Second, the "fear factor" as the survey respondents don't want to publicly admit to voting against the BJP.

Finally, the satta bazaar (bookies) has predicted 100-104 seats for the BJP, which means far away from achieving BJP president Amit Shah's target of the 150-plus mark.

Moreover, during the Assembly elections in 2012, the BJP got lesser seats than as predicted by the exit polls. The performance of the BJP (115 seats) was worse than predicted by the exit polls (127 seats) during the 2012 elections in Gujarat.

In 2017 polls, the turnout among women has dropped and the turnout among men has risen. The gap between the turnout of men and women which was 3 percent in 2012 has risen to 8 percent in 2017.

"The 'fear factor' of admitting not voting for the BJP is very much real," senior journalist Aarti R Jerath told NDTV.

"In spite of all these three worrying factors, the BJP is going to win the Gujarat elections, whether handsomely or not does not matter," added a political commentator.

In fact, most of the BJP leaders are confident of winning the elections in both the states. The incumbent chief minister of Gujarat, Vijay Rupani, stated that the party is going to get two-third majority in the state Assembly this time.

OneIndia News