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I had earlier done a roundup of opinion polls and predictions for the 2009 Indian Lok Sabha elections.

Here’s an updated summary of opinion polls and predictions for the 2009 Indian Lok Sabha elections.

Here’s a Google Doc spreadsheet of the predictions.

Here are the sources for the predictions: NDTV (After Phase 3), NDTV (After Phase 2), NDTV (Before Elections), DNA (After Phase 3), DNA (After Phase 2), DNA (After Phase 1), DNA (Before Elections), Arun Nehru (After Phase 4), Arun Nehru (After Phase 3), Arun Nehru (After Phase 2), Arun Nehru (After Phase 1), Arun Nehru (Before Elections), TOI (After Phase 3), TOI (Before Elections), India TV (Before Elections), Star-Nielsen (Before Elections), The Week (Before Elections), India Today (Before Elections), Reuters (Before Elections), Business Standard (Before Elections), BJP (Before Elections).

It seems that the gap between Congress and BJP has come down during the last month. Before the elections pundits were predicting that Congress will emerge as the largest party with 150-160 seats, while the BJP will win 130-140 seats. Now, it seems that the gap between the two parties may be less than 10 seats, one way or the other, with both parties winning 145-155 seats.  Read More

The world’s biggest election is underway in India and, as India’s 714 million voters cast their ballots in the month-long elections, they are witness to a range of digital initiatives from political parties, civil society organizations, media houses and even corporates. It’s not surprising, then, that the Indian internet community is abuzz with discussions related to various aspects of the elections.

It’s not only a big election in terms of numbers, it’s a big election for India in terms of timing. Last November, the terrorist attack in Mumbai shook up India’s politically apathetic youngsters and brought them out into the streets. Since then, a series of digital civil society initiatives have sought to channel this newfound sense of civic engagement in the Indian youth into meaningful participation in the political process.

In the run up to the elections, online conversations in India have been charged with this civic consciousness. Transparency campaigns like No Criminals in Politics and Vote Report India and voter registration campaigns like Tata Tea’s Jaago Re have caught the imagination of urban India’s web-savvy youngsters, with their effective use of social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube.  Read More

The world’s largest democracy, India, goes to election starting April 16, 2009. The month long general elections to the 15th Lok Sabha will be held in five phases on April 16, April 22/ 23, April 30, May 7 and May 13, and the results will be announced on May 16.

As India’s 714 million voters prepare to elect their 543 representatives, they are witness to a range of digital initiatives from political parties, civil society organizations, media houses and even corporates. As a result, some observers are calling it India’s first digital elections.

Leading from the front is 82 year old Lal Krishna Advani, the prime ministerial candidate of the right wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, who has embarked on a Obama style new media campaign. Part of the campaign are a blog, a blogger outreach program, one of the most aggressive online ad campaigns ever seen in India, and an aggressive SMS campaign that will reach 250 million of India’s 400 million mobile subscribers. Rajesh Jain’s Netcore Solutions, which is running the SMS campaign for BJP, has bought an inventory of 1 billion SMSes for the campaign. Rajesh is also a part of the Friends of BJP group, which is running a social network and an opt-in MyToday-based SMS channel to support BJP’s campaign (Indian Express).  Read More

Update: Here’s an updated summary of opinion polls and predictions for the 2009 Indian Lok Sabha elections.

The month long general elections to the 15th Lok Sabha start from April 16, and there is wide speculation on which party, or coalition, will emerge the winner, when the results are announced on May 16th.

Here is a quick roundup of the pre-election predictions and the discussion around them in the Indian blogosphere.

The India TV opinion poll predicts a tie with the Congress wining 143 seats (187 with UPA allies), and the BJP winning an identical 143 seats (189 with NDA allies). Previously, India TV has predicted that the BJP will emerge as the largest single party with 144 seats (187 seats with NDA allies), ahead of the Congress, which will win 133 seats (178 seats with UPA allies).

According to the second Star-Nielsen poll, the Congress will win 155 seats (203 with UPA allies), while the BJP will win 147 seats (191 with NDA allies) (via TOI).

Arun Nehru at the Deccan Chronicle predicts that the Congress will win 157 seats (193 with UPA allies), compared to the 132 seats for the BJP (177 with NDA allies).  Read More

I’m starting off the Global Voices special coverage on the 2009 Indian general elections by analyzing how internet and mobile technologies are transforming election campaigning in India.

Politics in India is essentially local and India’s voters elect their representatives based on small local and regional issues, instead of the big national issues. As a result, election rallies and door-to-door canvassing, supplemented by local hoardings and print ads in the vernacular languages have traditionally been at the core of election campaigning in India.

In 2004, the incumbent BJP broke away from this pattern with its aggressive nation-wide ‘India Shining’ campaign. It recruited advertising and PR agencies to manage its campaign, focused on the urban first time voter, advertised heavily on print and television, and allocated 5% of its campaign budget to an e-campaign, for revamping its campaign website, pushing out text messages, pre-recorded voice clips and emails to its database of 20 million email users and 20 million phone users, and offering campaign-related mobile ringtones for download (BBC/ BBC/ Rediff/ Hindu). The ‘India Shining’ campaign didn’t work eventually, and Sonia Gandhi led Congress to a surprise victory, once again reaffirming the almost magical appeal of the Nehru-Gandhi family amongst India’s voters. Many observers even attributed BJP’s loss to its “elitist” ‘India Shining’ campaign (Live Mint).  Read More

The world’s largest democracy, India, goes to election starting April 16, 2009. The month long general elections to the 15th Lok Sabha will be held in five phases on April 16, April 22, April 23, April 30, May 7 and May 13, and the results will be announced on May 16.

This is an important election for India, in the context of a series of terrorist attacks last year that shook up the country, and a worldwide financial crisis that threatens to derail its strong economic growth. However, even as analysts debate about the big issues that will shape the upcoming elections, they will do well to remember that India’s 714 million voters elect their 543 representatives based on small local and regional issues, instead of the big national issues.

This local nature of India’s national elections is at the core of India’s coalition politics. In the last decade, both Indian National Congress (Congress) and Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) have had to form coalitions consisting of several small regional parties. The BJP led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was in power from 1999 to 2004 under BJP leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The Congress led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) has been in power since 2004 under Congress party’s Manmohan Singh. Parties opposed to both the Congress and the BJP are also talking about forming a Third Front, but previous experience has shown that such coalitions tend to be fragile.  Read More

One of my seven social media predictions for India for 2009 was that social media will play an important role in the 2009 Indian general elections.

Young people in India are more engaged with politics than ever in the aftermath of the 11/26 Mumbai terror attack and this engagement will carry through to the 2009 elections.

I believe that we will see an unprecedented amount of online debate on the many problems facing India and even specific political parties and candidates. We will also see a serious “get out the vote” campaign to get more young people to go out to vote. We will also see some politicians experiment with social media tools, hoping to replicate the magic of Barack Obama’s US presidential campaign. The Lok Sabha elections for 2009 may even produce India’s first tech Prime Minister.

I think that we saw the first tentative steps in that direction when BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani started a blog yesterday (via Soumyadeep).

The first blog post talks about how he has seen election campaigning change between 1952 and 2009 and explains his reasons for starting a blog –  Read More