Political strategist Prashant Kishor predicted a "massive advantage" for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the Lok Sabha Elections 2024. He, however, said the "BJP can never win 400 seats".
In an interview with RTV Andhra Pradesh, Kishor further suggested that for the BJP to be ousted from the Centre, the party has to lose 100 Lok Sabha seats in North and West India, and not gain any in the East and the South.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has exuded confidence that the saffron party will win over 370 seats of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats, and the NDA will clinch over 400 seats.
Kishor told RTV Andhra Pradesh that it's all “guesswork and no one knows who will win how many seats”. But, "I don't think the NDA and BJP numbers will decline meaningfully," he said.
He suggested that for the BJP to lose power at the Centre, it would have to lose at least 100 seats in the North and the West.
Prashant Kishor told the news channel that in the East and the South – Bihar, West Bengal, Assam, Odisha, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala – there are at least 240 Lok Sabha seats. Of these, the BJP has less than 50 seats.
"But still, the BJP gets 300 seats because the rest 300 seats, which are in the North and the West, the BJP has won 260-270 seats," Kishor said.
He said the BJP could not lose the Lok Sabha elections if it did not lose 80-100 seats in the North and the West.
"So, how will they [BJP] lose power at the Centre? If they have to be ousted, then they would have to face defeat on 100 seats in the North and the West, and they should not gain any in East and South," Prashant Kishor said in the interview.
Kishor answered the question by saying that the BJP won't lose the majority at the Centre unless the strike rate of five parties — the Congress, the Samajwadi Party (SP in Uttar Pradesh), the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD in Bihar) and the NCP-Shiv Sena-Congress alliance (in Maharashtra) — is more than 30 per cent.
Predicting the Lok Sabha elections results, Kishor said he doesn't believe that the BJP will lose 100 seats in the North and the West.
"I don't see the BJP losing 100 seats in the North and the West. Moreover, on 250 seats in the South and the East, the BJP's vote share and seats are rising," Kishor said.
"There's no major loss in North and West. Even if what people claimed about the BJP's loss in Rajasthan and Maharashtra is to be believed, the BJP could face a setback on 20-30 seats only. But they will gain more than these many seats in the South and East," the political strategist added.
