(Ashok Malik is a columnist and writer living in Delhi)In the final teaser-trailer before the Big Day, NDTV-Hansa announced the results of its exit poll on Wednesday, May 14. The poll gave the NDA 279 seats in a Lok Sabha of 543, with the BJP itself predicted to get 235 seats. It was remarkable how closely this poll approximated the average of the other exit polls and mirrored three other polls done by mainstream media houses.
In fact, with the exception of two outlier polls, every exit poll has come up with very similar figures. As such, on May 16, there will either be many smug and satisfied faces - including in the NDTV studios and the offices of Hansa - or there will be a uniform embarrassment across several major media companies.
One of the oldest rules of polling is that making micro-predictions on the basis of a macro-sample is difficult to the point of being treacherous. As such, if a pollster were to seek to foretell the result in, say, Amethi or Amritsar on the basis of the Uttar Pradesh (UP) or Punjab segment of a national sample, it could go horribly wrong.
It follows that even if NDTV-Hansa and the three other polls that have similar numbers get the overall national verdict right, all of them cannot possibly get individual states right. Which way is Seemandhra going - is it even stevens between the Telugu Desam-BJP alliance and the YSR Congress or is one side decidedly ahead? Which side has the advantage in Punjab? What about Bihar, the single north Indian state where the BJP is being challenged by a strong socio-political coalition? Will the BJP finish in the high twenties or the low twenties? Different opinion polls reach different conclusions.
The state on which every pollster seems to agree, however, is UP. NDTV-Hansa gives the BJP 56 seats of 80. This probably includes Mirzapur, where Anupriya Patel of the Apna Dal, a BJP ally, is likely to win. When it comes to vote share, the BJP is forecast to get 40 per cent. In a four-way - or a three-and-a-half way - contest between the BJP, the Samajwadi Party (SP), the BSP and a declining Congress, this 40 per cent can prove to be formidable.
If correct, what do these statistics tell us about UP? They indicate that far from being a collection of hidebound, identity-based vote banks, the state's electorate is extremely dynamic. The caricature that Delhi-based commentators have of caste and religious groups that refuse to overcome ancient prejudices and traditional leaders is not just wrong but has been disproved repeatedly.
Indeed, there is anecdotal evidence that points to individual families, especially in urban areas and small towns, that have voted for all four of the state's major parties in the past decade - the BSP in 2007 (assembly election), the Congress in 2009, the SP in 2012 and the BJP in 2014. Each time they have voted in expectation of a better life. Another example would be the Muslims of UP, who voted in substantial numbers for the Congress in 2009, only to swing back to the SP in 2012.
The grassroots coalition the BJP put together in 2014 was built on urban and upper-caste support, but on its own this combination did not have the potential to take the party to 56 odd seats. The courting of OBC groups, particularly the young among Jats, Kurmis - the Apna Dal is a Kurmi-dominated party - and Yadavs (though admittedly the bulk of Yadavs have stayed with the SP) was crucial.
It didn't stop there. While a majority of Jatavs, the largest Dalit community and the BSP mainstay, have probably remained with Mayawati, other Dalit sub-communities were actively sought out by the BJP. Take Amethi. One of the reasons the BJP is optimistic about this seat is because it hopes to benefit from the 40,000-strong Passi vote. That is why Chirag Paswan of the Lok Janshakti Party (a BJP ally in Bihar) came to Amethi for a day of focused canvassing.
These plans and these formulae were aided by three things. First, Narendra Modi's appeal. Second, Amit Shah's sober, down-to-earth, practical-to-a-fault monitoring of constituency-level trends. Finally, there was a herculean effort by RSS activists and networks in the field. This more than made up for the diminution of the BJP infrastructure in UP in the past decade.
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