All eyes in India, and indeed throughout the Indian subcontinent, are focused on the Delhi Legislative Assembly elections to be held on 8th February, whose results will be declared on the 11th. I am giving my own prediction in advance.
Although Delhi is a small state, its importance far exceeds its size and population, since it is the capital and political hub of India. The main contest in the elections is between the Bharatiya Janta Party ( BJP ) which is in power in the central government, and the Aam Aadmi Party ( AAP ) which is in power in the state, the Congress Party being nowhere in the picture.
Many people have predicted a massive victory for the AAP, in view of what are perceived as its achievements in various fields. I, however, am skeptical, because experience has shown that in India votes are cast not on real issues like employment, food, healthcare, education etc but on emotional issues like building Ram temple and protecting cows, or bashing the 'devil' called Pakistan.
Of late polarization on religious lines has increased in India exponentially, and that will certainly have an effect on the Delhi elections. Most Hindus in India are communal, as are most Muslims. The anti CAA protests in Shaheenbagh are seen by many Hindus as mainly a Muslim show, with a large number of hijab and burqa clad ladies on the TV screens (as was pointed out by Prime Minister Modi ). In my opinion, the Hindus in Shaheenbagh represent only the 10% ‘liberals’ among Hindus and some students of some Universities, but not the majority of Hindus who support CAA.
Accordingly my prediction of the results is as follows: In each constituency in Delhi 99% Muslims + 75% Sikhs + 90% Christians + 10-15% Hindus will vote for the AAP.
The rest will vote for the BJP, the vast majority being the 85-90% among the Hindus.
I do not have with me the demographics of each constituency, so I cannot tell the exact result of the elections, but it can be calculated quite accurately using the above formula. 81.7% of Delhi’s population is Hindu, 12.8% are Muslim, 3.4% are Sikh, and 0.87% are Christian.
So this should give BJP a clear majority in the 70 member House.