Similarly, the Left will be punished severely in both West Bengal and Kerala. In one, they have a chief minister incapable of functioning in the 21st century; and in the other, their own ideological contradictions have mortally damaged one of India’s best chief ministers. In neither of the two states are they campaigning on their performance. In Kerala, theirs is a muddled ideological appeal. In West Bengal, they seek a vote to keep Mamata Banerjee out. This is not an election for negative campaigns, as even the Akalis will learn in Punjab. They have run a lazy, outdated government and bankrupted the state. Even the revival of the anger of 1984 will not do the trick for them. The state that needs watching is Maharashtra. By all accounts, the Congress-NCP government’s performance there has been dismal. But the BJP-Shiv Sena challenge there is not yet convincing enough to harvest this voter mood fully. So, another near-certainty is that Maharashtra would buck this performance test. The related certainty, however, is that the larger outcome of this election would depend on whether India’s second largest state (in terms of Parliament seats) bucks the performance test or not.

The next thing you can say for sure is that the nature of this next coalition will be determined not so much by who can go with whom, as by who will, or cannot, go with whom. Let’s try to simplify this. Whichever opinion poll may be correct, the BJP and its “like-minded” NDA will get, including Shiv Sena and the Akalis, at least 150 seats or thereabouts. These can never join a Congress-led or a third front-type “secular” coalition. Similarly, the Congress and several third- and fourth-front constituents (Left, SP, RJD, Muslim League), who need the Muslim vote or have an aggressive secular core, will never go with the NDA. So this takes another 250 or so MPs out of the equation. The endgame therefore will be played among the remaining 150. And how does that cookie crumble?

... contd.