Decoding the 2022 elections and the script for 2024

It would be wise not to make judgments about the outcome of the general election based on the Assembly poll results

in early 2022. And by the end of this year, Assembly elections will also be held in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. Since , the largest State in terms of the number of Lok Sabha seats, goes to the polls in early 2022 — along with , , and — this round of is being referred as the semi-final to the final (the Lok Sabha or the general election) which will be held in 2024. As in any match, winning the semi-final would guarantee a spot to play in the final, though it does not guarantee a victory in the final match.

The electoral verdict in the seven States that go to the polls this year (2022) will give us an idea of which party has the larger support base in which State; but these results cannot be an indicator of what might happen in 2024. Many State elections will take place in 2023 which would be much closer to 2024. There have been phases in India’s elections when people have chosen the same party to run the State government as well as the Central government, but it is a trend that no longer holds in present-day politics. In the last five years, there have been several elections such as in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Bihar, when voters have voted very differently while casting their vote for the State government and during the Lok Sabha election. There is no evidence to suggest these patterns would have changed over the last few years. So, in my opinion, the verdict of the State Assembly elections will not be any indicator of what might happen in 2024. In fact, to repeat what I have said earlier, one should refrain from making judgments about the likely outcome of the 2024 Lok Sabha election based on the verdicts in these Assembly elections.