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Yogi Teuton:Dear Yogendraji, I do hope you could respond to an unapologetically "academic" question. How do you respond to the view that overemphasis on psephology or other such empirical modes of investigation has undermined the study of politics as a hermeneutic (interpretive) science?

Yogendra Yadav: Thanks for asking this question. I agree that an obsession with election forecast tends to undermines a quest for political understanding. That is why I announced my "retirement" from election forecasting, in order to give more time to political understanding. But I do not see any conflit between empirical (remember, ethnography is also empirical and so is textual analysis)and hermenetic. In fact a hermeneutic that is not based on an encounter with the real world is bound to be metaphysical and misguided. Let us not confuse empirical with quantitative or positivist. Any serious understanding of politics must be empirically grounded and theoretically oriented. That is what I propose to do and hope that political scientists like you would also pursue that. Thanks.

Siddhartha Banerjee:I would like to know how did you distribute your sample for accurate prediction of election results?

Yogendra Yadav: We shall give all teh sampling details in the Hindu and the EPW. YOu could also, consult the EPW issue of 18 December 2004 to find out more about the National Election Study.

srini:hi yogendra. you had said that it was the LTTE issue that swung the verdict in favour of UPA. But in such a scenario even Vaiko(MDMK) should have benefited which obviously did noty happen. what could be the reason?

Yogendra Yadav: I did say that but it was based on a very quick analysis of one question. My colleagues tell me that the evidence is much more mixed and that I need to analyse it afresh. Will do that and we will report it in the Hindu next week in our supplement "how India voted". Please also look out for a special issue of the Economic and POlitical Weekly sometime in August this year where our entire team will answer all such questions based on the detailed findings of the National Election Study 2009.

C R Lakshmi:Hi, Why wasn't the Left able to communicate to its cadre and electorate it's fear of US imperialistic designs taking over India's foreign policy during election campaigns? Or, is it just a simple case of Karat not liking Manmohan's face that he wanted to pull out support to UPA? Regards, Lakshmi

Yogendra Yadav: The Left lost because it deserved to lose. Its government in Kerala is very poorly run despite an honest CM. In Bengal the CPI(M) has become an establishment that is cut-off from the people. That is what the left should have addressed instead of hoping that things like Indo-US deal will affect the voters.

pavs:Hi Yogendra, What do you think is costing BJP more?? Its geographical limitations? or Its incapibility to tie alliances?? or Lack of leadership in the pipeline. How much is the role of media in this defeat of BJP?? Because Congress made big gains in the states where BJP has no or little presence. Also, I want to pursue a career a psehology. Can you please guide me? Thank you.

Yogendra Yadav: To my mind the BJP did not lose the election because of any strategic mistake or because of media etc. The basic difficulty for the BJP is that it is restricted to a smaller part of the coutnry and has not presence in a large number of states. Combined with it is its narrow ideology that makes it difficult for allies to come to and stay with the party. The BJP needs to address these basic limitations in order to match the Congress at the national level.

vish:Why has BJP lost its complete foothold in Rajastan? Is internal bickering the only reason?

Yogendra Yadav: Not necessarily, this is exactly what happened to the Congress after losing the assembly election in 2003. Indian voters love to confirm a government in its early probation.

shamsu:I think this time the exit polls did farily better compared to last time. At least it is able to capture the correct trend compared to last time..However it was not expecting 260+ seats for congress ..What do u think are the things which the exit polls this time missed to capture ?.

Yogendra Yadav: I have aleady said above that I find out post-poll projections to be a modest success. Where we failed was in anticipating the fact that Congress would make small gains in a large number of states, that there was a mild hawa in its favour. But as I said I feel satisfied that we gave a correct state-wise picture.

srini:You had mentioned y'day that the 4th and 5th phase of polls were decisive in favour UPA as the electorate voted for stability. Do you think the result would have been different if the states that went to the polls in 4th and 5th phase had actually gone to the polls before everyone else?

Yogendra Yadav: Very interesting but very difficult question. First of all we need to analyse the vote share and swings closely to see if the Congress lead in the last two phases was simply because these states were favourable to the party or becuase it actually gained over 2004. And then we can turn to your question. The late elections may have given Mamata Banerjee more time to organise her campaing and work out her alliance with Congress, but it does not seem to be a factor in TAmil Nadu or Punjab etc. But these are just conjectures. I have not done careful analysis of evidence yet.

anwesha:Hi Dr Yadav, Your predictions and analysis are mind blowing.Please don't leave cnn ibn and your predictions. Two quetions.. 1. How much delimitations had impacted the political parties, seatwise? 2. Do you think that idea of third front without PM candidate didn't click among the voters. So every third front ally is down and out? thanks

Yogendra Yadav: Thanks for your kind words. I think our forecast was a modest success, for we saw the trend clearly and could foresee that the UPA was way ahead in the race to forming the government. But we did not capture the number of seats the Congress could pick up. On vote share and general trend for each state our performance was more satisfactory. I think we spotted the leader and the trend correctly in almost every state.

srikumar310:Where did jayalalitha go wrong this time? What made her lose instead of all odds stacked in her favor? What was wrong with her election campaign?

Yogendra Yadav: To be very honest, I dont fully understand it yet. We are still analysing the findings of our post-poll survey that alerted us to her defeat. WE will try to answer that in our supplement "HOw India Voted".

alim ahmed:Did Muslim Vote split in Karnataka, which beniffited BJP?

Yogendra Yadav: I dont remember this offhand. To my mind the real gains for the BJP have been among the Lingayats and the dalits in Karnataka. Those of you who are interested in such specific details might wish to wait for "How India Voted" a special supplement that the CSDS team is working on. The supplemented will be brought out by the Hindu within the next week. It will have all this data and much more.

shamsu:In your analysis you have mentioned that there is a national swing towards Congress? . I wanted to understand what are the factors behind this swing ?. Does Varun Gandhi's hate speech one reason ?

Yogendra Yadav: No, Varun GAndhi factor was blown up by the media. It may have helped the BJP in a couple of constituencies around Pilibhit and may have damaged the NDA in many more places outside UP. But that was not a very big factor. The national trend for Congress appears to be a result of a favourable image of the government and the top leaders.

Biranchi Narayan Acharya:Namaste Jogendrajee, CNN-IBN’s effort of practicing inclusive & participatory journalism is highly appreciable. My questions are as follows. Is Election-2009 is an approver of Indian voters coming of age in electing governments that is stable & performing while rejecting opportunistic vote bank politics that involves cast-equations, communalism (both type Hindutwa & minority appeasing policy), dalit cards, populist slogans, coalitions without ideologies etc? Further whether Indian voters also focused on credibility of the alternative based on performance while in opposition? If the above is answer comes affirmatively, whether the international community should reassess maturity & completeness of Indian democracy? If no, then is election 2009 results are accidental & Indian voters yet to achieve maturity to elect a better alternative to govern the nation?

Yogendra Yadav: We should not confuse the consequences of a verdict with the motives of an ordinary voters. The conseaquence of this outcome is a stable government, but that does not seem to be the primary motive of the voters. Indian democracy does not need to seek any certificate from anyone about its 'maturity'. Our voter is as mature or as immature as an American or South African voter. Do remember that the US voters had elected Mr Bush not once but twice!

XYZ:Sir , are we reading too much into Congress victory in UP? Maya too did the magic in the last assembly polls.. She couldnt repeat it this time???

Yogendra Yadav: At the moment Congress is number four in terms of votes. But its current vote share of about 18 per cent gives it a good launching pad, provided it puts in serious organisational work.

shamsu:Can Congress do in Bihar what they did in UP in coming future ? What is your thoght on this ?.

Yogendra Yadav: It would be much more difficult in Bihar. Congress' starting point is lower. There are no Gandhi family strongholds. And there is a fairly popular government headed by Nitish Kumar.

Ramanuj Gopalan:Dear Sir, What do you think was the reason for BSPs poor showing? Is it because of loss in vote share from its traditional Dalit vote base or is it mainly due to drift of the Muslim, Brahmin votes etc. to mainly the Congress and the SP?

Yogendra Yadav: The BSP lost only about 3 per cent votes from assembly elections, largely among the upper caste voters. But the non-BSP vote consolidated from constituency to constituency. That meant that despite being the largest party in terms of votes, the BSP did not get the largest number of seats.

Ashish:As per caste based equations Congress and Chiranjivi's party shares same vote bank. Then how Congress got spectacular success in AP?

Yogendra Yadav: Caste is not the only factor that matters. The Congress govt in AP had implemented many of the pro-poor schemes more effectively than many other states. Besides, the overlap between the Congress and Chiranjivi vote was only among the Kapus. There was not clash among Reddy, Muslim and SC votes.

mohit singh:do u think discipline level in congress is much higher than BJP ?

Yogendra Yadav: no, actually the discipline level in Congress is much lower. But a team with some handicaps can win a match.

sunit16:Had the congress allied with sp and rjd the upa,s tally could have crossed 290?

Yogendra Yadav: Yes, such an alliance could have even touched 300. But it would not have given the Congress teh kind of confidence it has now. So, in retrospect, the gamble of going it alone paid off.

nitesh prasad:Do you think is it only victory of the government or people had economic enviroment in mind while voting? That's why they though upa was best to handle current situation.

Yogendra Yadav: Issues of national level government are not upper most in the mind of the Indian voters when they vote in a national election. State government matters more to people. And they dont understand much intricacies of economic policies. But the fact of general economic growth in the last 5 years and a general trust in the leadership to handle economic problems may have been a small factor.

Ashish:Who will be biggest loser in Uttar Pradesh if Congress increases its ground in the state? Is it SP or BSP?

Yogendra Yadav: Difficult to say at this stage. The Congress is still the smallest party in UP in terms of votes. But it is poised to make big gains, if it puts in hard work. It has alraedy damaged the SP among the Muslims and has taken some upper caste votes from BJP. If the Congress gains in a big way now, the gains will be cross-sectional and would be at the cost of all its rivals.

naveen: Hi sir If Congress won it purely on its dev agenda then why did the allies lost especially NCP ( loan waiver) , RJD (Lalu did provide a lot of trains & cheaper fares for the people of bihar to migrate but the people it seems don;t want to migrate anymore ?).

Yogendra Yadav: The national level trend was influenced to some extent by the pro-people imgage of the UPA government, but that was not the only factor. The RJD lost in Bihar precisely on the issue of development and governance. Nitish government held out hope on these, while Lalu Prasad's reocrd on governance in Bihar was exceedingly poor.

Arul:It appears that Raj Thackrey, Chiranjeevi & Vijaykanth by being spoilers have accounted for the gain of atleast 35 to 40 Seats for UPA. If we factor this in, I believe your Exit Polls were bang on target.

Yogendra Yadav: Thanks for you support! Actually any post-poll or exit poll should take such factors into account. And if you look at what we said in these states, we had taken it into account. We said that in TN, the DMK alliance was headed for a big win, it could even be a sweep.WE said that in AP Congress had a clear advnatage in the Lok SAbha contest. And in Maharashtra we gave clear advantage to the Congress-NCP.

Sella:Hi Sir,my question is:Will the BJP follow hard Hindutva anymore?

Yogendra Yadav: They should not, for their challenge is not about consolidating their hard core vote but about expanding beyond their core votes. Focussing on Hindutva will be a wrong strategy for this objective. But one cannot be sure that the parties would learn a correct lesson from electoral defeat. Sometime they can take a very short sighted view.

saurabh dogra:Hi sir, i want to know what went wrong in BJP strategy, is it media mismanagement or varun gandhi episode????

Yogendra Yadav: Neither, to my mind. This election was not as much lost by the BJP as it was won by the Congress. The outcome shows that the BJP has some inherent limitations and unless it overcomes them it is very difficult for it to have a chance of coming to power, except in the situation like 1999. It did make some errors in the campaign, but so did the Congress. If a team loses the match, it does not mean that everything that it did was wrong.

Chat Master

Yogendra Yadav

Senior Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and Co-Director of Lokniti

Yogendra Yadav is Senior Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and Co-Director of Lokniti - Institute for Comparative Democracy.