 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today we bring in you the live updates of the election results that have come out today for the 5 states. We have Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur. To discuss the issue we are joined by Prabir Purkayastha, Editor-in-Chief of NewsClick. Welcome to NewsClick, Prabir. So let's start with Uttar Pradesh and we are seeing a clear majority of, we say, a clean sweep by BJP. They are leading on 296 seats followed by SP which is leading on 57 seats and Congress on 12 seats. So total is 69 seats for SP and Congress Alliance. The disappointing party is of course the Bhaujan Samaj party which is leading only on 15 seats. Let's have a look at the vote shares that they have. 39.7% for BJP, 22% for Samajwadi party and 6.1% for Congress which is 28.1% for the coalition. And we have 22% for the Bhaujan Samaj party. So if we look at the scenario, there doesn't seem to be much change in terms of what happened in Lok Samar elections. BJP undoubtedly has seen a decline in its vote share but if we also include the Apna Dal, there's not much of a decline. Exit polls predicted a majority for BJP but not such a clean majority. So what do you have to say? What has actually happened? Exit polls as we know in India have been very, very erratic. You have situations where some have predicted majority. Some have said hung assembly. So exit polls have gone in each state in different ways. One of the exit polls will always be right because they are having such wide variations of predictions. I think we can leave the exit polls and the pre-election polls out. They don't seem to work very well in India. We'll come to an analysis of why this happens in India later. Let's look at the broad results itself. I think it's very clear that BJP has held to its vote share what it had in 2014. Roughly the shares of each of the coalitions that we see on the ground, BSP of course, not in any coalitions, hasn't really changed. They almost all have similar vote shares. So essentially what we're looking at is post 2014, the scenario seems to have continued. Which means that both the appeal in UP did work. The polarization that we had, the common polarization we had seen in UP also remained where it was. What we have to add to this is essentially what the BJP has been calling its social engineering, which is that it has appealed to among the OBCs. It has appealed to the non-Yadav OBCs, given them seats on the ticket, has been also able to cobble together a coalition even amongst the Dalits, which are the non-Jatav Dalit votes. Now here is the issue that identity politics has this limitation, that you base your appeal on identity. Then somebody else can come and engineer a set of micro identities, if you will, within the identity you have created. And then you get into the problems of you being identified with one section of the OBC or one section of the Dalit, and somebody else can then cobble a different identity alliance together. The moral of the story, this I think is a big political disappointment for all of us who were hoping that the secular forces will come on top in UP, is that we have a long fight ahead. It's not going to be simple. And it's also clear identity politics has reached its limits in India, and unless we take up the issues that are really far more important to the people, on identities we are not going to get anything but fraction mandates, and that is always going to help finally the ruling parties, which are there. And also end with one part, what we need to discuss, why the demonetization, which had created such a measure, should it work? Why didn't it work against Modi? And I think we need to also think about this, that while both sides, the opposition as well as Modi, said there is going to be difficulties for the people, dislocations in the economy, the message that the opposition had was how bad it was. Modi's message was, and this is really a Modi election again, and we have to admit that UP was as much a Modi election as the 2014 election was. The Modi campaign was that yes it's been a huge dislocation, but India will gain in the long run, and I think the opposition did not focus on the fact that demonetization is not helping the country, it's helping the rich and harming the poor. So that message, the class message of demonetization really didn't come. And talking about the difficulties was not going to be enough because people then felt we are making sacrifices for the greater good. So the greater good message unfortunately was the one which Modi could use to his advantage, and I think that's where the opposition is. And he's been able to preach it at the ground level itself. Let's put it this way, if the opposition had focused on who is it going to benefit, that why demonetization was a step in helping a certain set of sections, and it was not something which was going to help either curbing black money or helping the poor. As long as the effect was not focused on, and you focused only on the dislocation, it was not going to be enough. And I think that's where the opposition really failed. It did not successfully campaign on which sections it is going to help, why the poor are going to be really harmed, why the informal sector which provides employment to about 80-85% sector of the country's people, that sector was the one which was in long term going to be hit because the formal sector would strengthen at the expense of the informal sector and therefore of employment. So I think all these issues are the issues that did not come out in the demonetization debate. And therefore we are seeing somewhat shall we say fading in the background of demonetization. That became an issue which people felt did harm them, but that did not let them lead them to vote against the BJP. And I think that's the message that we get on this. Two quick questions Pravee. Do you think the Samajwadi party is in a fight that they had and the delay that took place in bringing the candidate list, starting the campaign that took a toll and Samajwadi party congress alliance which was considered to be a very strong alliance performed so badly? I think we have to look at the larger picture. I don't think that the Samajwadi party, its inner fight was that much of an issue. You see if you went to UP, people did say Akhilesha has done work. That was not the message that wasn't there. But the point is the social engineering that had come out of the Mandal agitation, that social engineering has reached its end and that's what we really now see. That yes there was social engineering, but this time the identity based politics work against the social engineering of the Mandal era. So I think that's an end of an era that identity politics has now to be seen that it has reached its limits. And unless you are able to take the larger issues, I think even parties like SP and others have to realize that this is not going to take them very far. And the last part of it we have to also think about that the media has been entirely with the BJP. The communal platform the BJP has been able to build is still intact. And the communal platform has been converted to an ultra nationalist platform in which you are basically looking at everything to the prism of enemy versus us. And the enemy is always the Muslims, the left, all those who want peace with Pakistan. We want war with Pakistan. The secular progressive voices. Yes. And also the whole divisive politics that we want war and the war voice is the voice that drowns out the voice for peace. So this is not just a secular issue. It's also that you want war. So ratchet up the war, confuse the war issue with nationalism and then make nationalism and identify it with the particular religious community, the Hindu nationalism. And that is the other social engineering which has been going on. Now that's some social engineering BJP has been trying for more than 70 years. So there is nothing new in this. The success of it is today because of the weakness of the other side. And I think we need to build on peace. We need to build on what is the socially progressive policies. We need to build on what are the kind of classes which are becoming more and more dominant. The fact that 1% under Modi has got 58% of the wealth. The fastest accumulation of wealth that's ever taken place in India. And this has not happened with just increase in wealth going to the rich, the top 1%. But it has happened that the transfer from one section to the other has been really transferred from the sections which are poor. I think that's the message of this election. But we should also discuss what's happening in other states. Other states, exactly. So let's come back to Punjab. Punjab has been one of the important states that has gone for elections in this entire phase. So we see revival of Congress in Punjab. They are leading on almost 73 seats. And they have 1-2 seats which means they are leading on 75 seats altogether. The surprising part in Punjab is what the exit polls were saying that there would be a neck-to-neck fight between armed army party and international congress. That's clearly not happening. Armed army party is leading on 23 seats. And they were saying it would be a wipe-off out for Sheromiri Akali Dal and Bharti Janta Party. They will not reach even the double digits, which they have clearly seemed to reach and they are much closer to armed army party than Congress. The vote share, if you look at, Congress has got around 39% vote. Akali Dal is around 25% vote. Armed army party has 24% vote and BJP has 6.1% vote. So BJP and Akali Dal have together got around 31% vote. It's clearly anti-incumbency that Sheromiri Akali Dal and BJP are facing. But what actually has happened to ARP? Well, it's also interesting that ARP has done well relatively in the Malwa region. That's one place they seem to have done well. Other places they don't seem to have done so well. It's also clear that the anti-incumbency from the Akali BJP combined, which is supposed to have gone to ARP and that was the expectation that the anti-incumbency vote would go much more to ARP and not so much to the Congress. It does seem that obviously this has not happened. That because Akalis have retained a lot of their vote, therefore the anti-incumbency expectation that armed army party, ARP would gain out of the Akali anti-incumbency, it would benefit ARP much more than the Congress. That has not happened and ARP therefore hasn't gained much, that much. They have in fact done worse than the 2014 elections. They have dropped below that figure. It's very clear that the Congress had a strong chief ministerial candidate. Amarinder Singh had fought in 2014. He was one of the few leaders of the Congress who was willing to go out and campaign, fight. He was seen as a leader who was standing still up to the opposition. While in a lot of the other states, the Congress leaders have actually folded up. They're not visible. They're not in the ground. And Amarinder Singh did in that sense at least hold up the Congress flag in Punjab clearly. So this is a clear issue that there is a basic shift if you're willing to stand up and fight. If you're not willing to stand up and fight as you saw the Congress fold up in Maharashtra and other states, then you have a problem on your hands. So I think the moral again of the story, the ultimate, the fact that you can see is that you need to stand up and fight for your ground. It's clear that the drug issue has hit the economy hard. And it is also true that the kind of regime the ran in which they were very obviously benefitting from different occupancy of the state, shall we say, in different ways. And the fact that they had become much more wealthy than they were before, it was visible accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few of the bubble family particularly. Yeah, there are a series of business houses. There are a series of business houses. They have been big land holders in Punjab much earlier. But they have really diversified from that to hotels to various other things. And it's also said that they hold a lot of property abroad. We don't know. But leaving all of that out, the visible wealth of the bubble family and the fact that they're holding the government in Punjab was a major reason for it, coupled with the drug issue. And let's face it, the youth in Punjab, particularly the men, are actually being destroyed today. If you go to universities, you will find, for instance, even in sciences, the admission of young students who are boys have declined. So it's affecting from its class onwards. So this huge effect on the youth of Punjab, which is being really felt, the social reasons for it have to be analyzed. And again, we have to look at the economic reasons. There is a wealthy peasantry and there are no jobs. And this is the reason that you see, therefore, a turn towards destructive politics, destructive habits. And this is the drug issue in Punjab. So I think we need to focus on this. And AAP's campaign also shows just a negative campaign without a positive campaign is not going to be enough. And I think that's also the lesson that AAP has to learn, that they're keeping out of all, shall we say, class and economic issues. And looking on it purely as a social issue, drug and corruption are the only issues which are in some sense non-class issues, not willing to take class issues, I think is a positive. Because they didn't focus at all on the agrarian crisis that Punjab has been facing severely in the last few years. That's the issue. The agrarian crisis coupled with no jobs. This is the one which is really driving the youth in Punjab towards drugs. And that's a much larger issue. Looking just at the symptom, which is the drugs, is not going to be enough. You have to look at the basic causes. And I think it's very clear that AAP's limitation comes from the fact that they want a platform which is quote-unquote non-ideological. And a non-ideological platform essentially is an ideological platform which will not look at class issues. And I think that's where the AAP really is running into its limitation. Do you think AAP also faces this entire insider versus outsider factor that the different parties have been raising, even the way Amrinda Singh has been projecting himself as someone who is from Punjab and who can understand their problems, rather than Kejriwal coming from Delhi and campaigning there? You know, I will say after UP and Modi's campaign in UP, we have to say that again that is not enough. That can be a part of the explanation but that's not enough. If you have larger issues you are able to focus and that becomes only an element in this. So I think we have to accept that AAP's limitation is not outsider versus insider. It's really the limitation of its platform. Again in Goa, they were expected to do much better than they have done. And therefore AAP's challenge to take the Congress space and that's really what their challenge was. And it is true that in the states where Congress has been the major opposition, AAP has been able to gain some ground. But the limitation of attempting to take the Congress space without any, shall we say, ideological basis has its clear limitation and that's what we are seeing in Punjab and Goa as well. Delhi, we had the BJP and the Congress. Congress folded up as you know in the second election. BJP still remained where it was. In fact, the vote that took place here, that change was really from the Congress to the AAP. So they did take the Congress space in Delhi. So I think this is the lesson of Punjab that AAP has to learn. But clearly that's one state that Congress is able to retain. And we have also the results for Manipur, Goa and Uttarakhand or at least trends. Uttarakhand is a very interesting thing to look after. BJP is leading on 52 seats with 45% of the total votes they have gained. 14 seats, Congress is leading and independents are leading on 4 seats. BSP has 8% votes. They had seats last time but they didn't seem to be doing well this time. Surprisingly, half of the candidates of Bharti Janta Party or at least 25-30% of them are people who have come from Congress. The Bhaugana faction that had come, they had resigned entirely. So it's all Congress rebel who are winning one BJP seats. What do you have to say on that? Well, let's be again fair about this. The victory is on the BJP. The fact is the weakness of the Congress is there. Wherever Congress is the major opposition party except in Punjab where Amarinder Singh has been able to hold the fort. The Congress is in a state of partial collapse. That's what we saw as I said in the local body elections earlier. And I think that's the pattern we are going to see. Is the Congress going to be able to stand up to the BJP? Because Uttarakhand has also the habit of switching every alternate elections. And this time, therefore, was BJP's money. This was their turn. So I think Uttarakhand was an expectation was BJP will win Uttarakhand convincingly. That there is no change in the prediction. That's one case where you can say the exit polls and the predicted polls before the run-up to the elections have held true. So probably let's have a look at Goa. BJP is leading total on seven seats. They have one on three. Leading on four. Congress seems to be making comeback by leading on eight seats. Other than NCP-1, MGE-1 and Goa Foward party is two. So this not at all a clear majority which seems to be appearing for anyone. It's toward a fractured mandate, maybe a hung assembly. Most likely BJP may form government with coalitions. Well, if it's a hung assembly, BJP gets advantage of being the ruling party in the country. Therefore, the money power, the muscle power, other powers as it were is with them. So therefore, their ability to form coalitions probably at this stage is greater than the Congress. But I think the interesting part of it is that in spite of Parikkar being projected as chief minister candidate, which people thought would lead to a clear mandate for BJP, that has not happened. And Congress is very much in the fray. Let's see what the final results are. It's something that we have to watch now. And for the trains are also only till now on the 50% of the seats and the entire result. They have been sort there quite closes of now. So without really a further set of figures, I expect that that's going to go down to the wire till the last moment we'll really not know who has the majority and who gets the seats in the assembly. But at least the Congress is holding to its goa some base. And that's something that UP has not been able to cut into significantly, which was also an expectation that UP might do well in goa. That has not happened. UP is there, but it is still a very much distant party over there. So Manipur is the last thing that we should discuss. BJP seems to have come in Manipur also among the other north eastern states where BJP seems to have been increasing its influence. They are leading on 11 seats. Congress is obviously there in power for long now. They are leading on total 13 seats. Then Naga people's friend, which is three. National People's Party is four and Lok Jan Shakti Party is one. Do you think Congress will be able to retain their stronghold in northeast? Well, let's put it this way. It's again going at the moment towards a fractured mandate. No party has a clear majority. Again the problem in the northeast is if the ruling party at the center wants to strike alliances, then it's in a much better position to do so because all the states are relatively weak. Their finances are weak. They are much more dependent on the center, both for money as well as for policing. So there are also other kinds of militancies in Manipur. So the dependency of the north eastern states on the center has been much greater. And therefore the swing towards the party at the center, whether it was Congress earlier or now it's BJP, has been there in all the north eastern states where they seem to gain from either wholesale breakaways, parties abandoning their party, joining other BJP and so on. So I do think that irrespective of the electoral mandate, which is not clearly for the BJP, the chances are that BJP will end up by forming the government. It's unlike Goa where there are at least strong local presences and it could happen that BJP may not be able to form a government even though they may have an edge. But I think Manipur, if it continues to be hung assembly, the chances are that it will be BJP-led coalition. I think the important part of it is that BJP which was expecting to win Manipur has not succeeded in winning Manipur. At least the Congress has held. Despite the fall in their vote share, because BJP seems to be having 34.1% vote, Congress is having 30.2% vote. So probably, I mean, North East region which has been out of bounds for BJP, they formed government in Assam. Now Manipur, they are getting 34.1% vote. What are the reasons for this growth of BJP in the Northeast region? Well, there are two things in this region. So I am not going to say I am an expert in the Northeast. We will have to ask others for a more detailed explanation of this. But it is true that given the kind of valley versus hills issue that has been there in Manipur that BJP has been able to play the anti-Ebobising card. Those Eobising really perhaps may not be happy, particularly in the hill districts. So there is an argument that there has been a tacit alliance with the Naga front and so on, which we will have to see what really transpires, what happens. Other part of it is that in Manipur at least, they have revived again the feudal elements in Manipur society. They went to the king who is a forgotten figure in Manipur and said, you are a Hindu king, you are a great man and they forgotten you. So this revival of, shall we say, Hindu identity, trying to identify to the king and so on, this is the other part of the BJP's appeal in Manipur plains. So that is what they seem to have done. And yes, there is a certain degree of, shall we say, religious identity in Manipur because there is the metis, have a certain identity, so they seem to be trying to play on that as well because in lot of other places in Manipur, in the northeast, apart from the Assam valley, this is not really the majority. So I think what you are seeing in other parts of the northeast are really politics of, shall I say, buying and selling where BJP has been far more successful in buying wholesale other parties. What you are seeing in Manipur is actually something which is similar to Assam. You are really seeing the influence of Hindu identity based politics gain ground. This I think is a danger for the northeast. One important factor in Manipur election was the basic demand of the people was revealed of armed forces special power act. If BJP comes to power, I don't think that seems to be happening, the standard they have been taking of AFSPA. So do you think that people actually voted for BJP knowing this that the basic demand would not be fulfilled or BJP might change its position? I think AFSPA has a certain degree of support in terms of its repealed. Nevertheless, Irom Shalbila and her party hasn't done well. She has lost elections clearly. So I think these are issues which are important but they do not finally end up by deciding the votes. I don't think it's an anti AFSPA or a pro AFSPA vote. That's the way I would see all of this. People, yes, people do feel the pain of all these issues. But when it comes to vote, they still decide on certain larger consideration as they see it. So I don't think any of this election should be reduced to a single issue election. And I think that's true whether it was from demonetization to AFSPA. I think people don't vote just on single issues. They vote on a complex set of issues and ultimately decide which one they want to vote. So I think that's the message that how do we bring what I would consider the more fundamental issues before the people. That's a real challenge because I think we are seeing the end of a certain kind of identity politics. We are seeing virulent nationalism combined with a different kind of identity politics, which is really Hindu, Muslim, trying to divide the people on the lines of religion. So all this that we are seeing I think is a new challenge that is there before us. And I think that that's what the opposition, the left and other parties have to think about. Particularly the fact that we need an ideological opposition to BJP. A non-ideological opposition, just an opposition politics is not going to be enough. To say we oppose the BJP, everybody come together is not going to be enough. Because BJP has a political platform, it can be opposed only by an alternate political platform, not by negative platform. I think that's the message. That's all the time we have for this session and we'll be coming back to you on this issue again as new trends come in at 12.30. We'll come back at 12.30. Please keep following us. This is all the time we have for now.