3% vote swing would cost UPA 101 seats: Jefferies

Says for NDA to win it would have to draw voters away from not just UPA but also regional players

An analysis of the previous election results reveal that a 3% change in the votes would result in the United Progressive Alliance or UPA losing 101 seats.

The narrow margins of victory in Indian elections and the 100 million first-time voters in 2014 could play a key role in deciding the outcome of the elections, suggested international brokerage Jefferies India in its India Equity Strategy report entitled ‘Within the margin of error.’

“We have done a bottom-up constituency wise analysis of 2009 election results to analyse the impact of the rise of any anti-incumbency factor. We analyse how the 2014 election results could look if in each constituency a certain per cent of votes, from the 2009 levels, shift from UPA to other parties,” said the report dated September 11 and authored by equity analysts Piyush Nahar and Govindarajan Chellappa.

It suggested that new voters could be a major deciding factor in 2014 and the rise of any anti-incumbency factor could lead to large seat losses for UPA.

“…Our analysis reveals that just a 3% vote share shift from UPA to the No 2 player would result in loss of 101 seats for UPA,” it said, while also noting that 45% of the seats are won on a margin of less than 6%.

Meanwhile, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) does not appear to be a major gainer from the UPA’s loss, suggested the duo.

“Continuing the above analysis, for NDA to reach 220+ seats in 2014 elections it would need to draw voters away from not just UPA but also regional players. In fact it will need to gain 5% vote share, from 2009 levels, from the top player in each seat, to reach 220 seats,” they said in the report.