How to read the Indian voter's mind

In economics, the issues surrounding individual choice when it comes to buying something have been discussed for a very long time

One of the abiding mysteries of politics is why do voters vote the way they do. Ever since television presenters introduced mind-numbing data analysis as a substitute for voter behaviour, we had to put up with ignorant blather on a monumental scale.

One reason for this is that the Indian pioneers of this approach were data-obsessed economists whose main objective was to make predictions about which party would get how many seats.

It began in the late 1980s as a sport that soon transformed into a game of voter surveys, amounts of funding and the TRPs of election shows. Quite