UP, Bihar to boost BJP’s chances in 2014 Lok Sabha elections: IIFL ,The BJP's prospects for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections have got better in recent weeks:IIFL
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- Last Updated: Thursday, 22 January 2015 20:53
The BJP's prospects for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections have got better in recent weeks:IIFL
MUMBAI: Brokerage house IIFL has said that the BJP's prospects for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections have got better in recent weeks with the best-case scenario indicating that the party may get about 210 seats from about 190 earlier.
The success will be largely driven by the performance in the electorally crucial state of Uttar Pradesh. IIFL forecasts the party winning about 50 seats up from 26 earlier. In Bihar, BJP is expected to win 16 seats from 12 earlier.
With BJP sweeping its bastions in the recently-concluded assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, and given its limited presence in the southern states, the chances of a Narendra Modi-led NDA government largely depends on the outcome in the two largest states in the Hindi heartland, which together account for 120 Lok Sabha seats, or 22% of a total 543 seats in Parliament.
"Almost everything seems to have fallen in place for the BJP in UP and Bihar, and there's massive support for Modi in UP," IIFL analysts Gopal Ritolia and Bijal Shah said in a report, after travelling almost 600 km through the two states across 15 parliamentary constituencies. The BJP is gaining from double antiincumbency in UP - BSP and SP have ruled the state in past 10 years - and people are yearning for a change, with Modi as their automatic choice, according to the report.
Many foreign and domestic brokerages, including Goldman Sachs, CLSA, Credit Suisse and Nomura, have upgraded their Sensex and Nifty targets in the last three months based on the assumption that a Narendra Modi-led BJP coalition could possibly come to power after the Lok Sabha elections. "Typically, equity investors consider BJP as business-friendly, and its prime ministerial candidate Modi as an agent of change," Goldman Sachs said in a report last November.
But the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) performance in Delhi has galvanised supporters leading to a nation-wide surge in membership and popularity. It is expected to do well in urban constituencies but no opinion poll has been done so far to estimate its seat or vote share.
The Sensex gained 8% between September and December after BJP announced Modi as its prime ministerial candidate, to hit an all-time high of 21483.74 on December 12, 2013. Foreign investors, who have invested nearly Rs 48,000 crore since September 13 last year, believe that a Modi-led government would act in a decisive manner and introduce bold new reforms.
However, unlikein UP, the people in Bihar aren't so sure, though there is an undercurrent of support for Modi. Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, after all, has a track record for good governance and has helped the state turn around in many ways. The biggest threat facing a Modi-led government, according to IIFL, is the much rumoured BSP-Congress alliance, and a late surge by the Arvind Kejriwal-ruled AAP, which is capturing the people's imagination fast after its stellar performance in the Delhi assembly elections.
On AAP, the brokerage housesaid that its gain in terms of seats in the Delhi polls has not been at the expense of BJP, but the new party has managed to eat into Congress and BSP's vote base. "AAP could dent BJP in states where the expected anti-incumbency against the Congress could have resulted in large gains for the BJP. In our view, the three states where BJP could have potentially done much better without AAP contesting are Delhi, Haryana and Maharashtra," the report states. source:economicstimes