After Prashant Kishor, US expert predicts massive BJP victory in Lok Sabha elections

Political expert Prashant Kishor has triggered a storm on social media with his recent prediction that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) can surpass its 2019 Lok Sabha elections tally (303 seats) because there isn’t any significant dissatisfaction against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Now a prominent American political scientist, Ian Bremmer, has predicted that either the ruling party will likely score its highest-ever seats tally.

Prashant Kishor said earlier this week that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP is returning to power with either the “same or slightly better numbers”. He asserted that there is no “widespread public anger” against the prime minister or his party.

Asked about his prediction for the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, Bremmer gave NDTV Profit an optimistic outlook, saying the party can win between 295 and 315 seats.

The Bharatiya Janata Party stormed to power with 282 seats in 2014, with the National Democratic Alliance winning 336 seats in total.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP bettered its tally, winning 303 seats. In total, NDA crossed the 350-mark – the only party to have achieved the feat after the Congress.

The Congress-led INDIA bloc hopes to dent the BJP’s support base in the Hindi heartland. The BJP, on the other hand, is looking at the magical ‘400’ figure, hoping to retain its seats in northern and western states and winning more seats in southern states like Telangana, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

The BJP also hopes to better its 2019 figure (18) in West Bengal.

Bremmer further observed that there wasn’t a “lot of uncertainty about the Indian political system”, NDTV Profit reported.

“Modi is almost certainly going to win a third term on the back of pretty strong economic performance and consistent reform (and) that, in the grand scheme, is a very stabilising message,” he told the channel.

He said India will likely become the fourth largest economy in the world next year, and the third largest by 2028.

From a global political perspective, Bremmer said, the general election is the “only thing that looks stable and consistent”.

“We have an enormous amount of macro-level geopolitical uncertainty and the future of globalisation is not going the way companies want it to. Politics is inserting itself into the global marketplace… wars, US-China relations, and the US election are all a big part of that. All of these are not being managed well and these pressures are more negative. In fact, the only thing that looks stable and consistent, politically, is the India election. Everything else looks problematic,” he told the channel.