 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today we have with us senior journalist Shankar Raghuraman and we are going to discuss with him the ongoing assembly elections in various states. First let's talk about Punjab. What is your assessment of Punjab elections? With AAP being the new player in the game? Who do you think they will impact most? Akali's, BJP's or Congress? First let's, one thing which is necessary to take on board here is that Punjab is one of the few states where in 2014 the so called Modi wave did not work. In 2014 the Akali BJP alliance got 35.2 percent of the vote which was less than the vote they had got in 2012. In 2012 the combined had won 41.9 percent of the vote. So, that was the state where the anger against the incumbent state government was already palpable and as time has gone by it has only become worse. So, I think the real thing playing out in the Punjab elections is an anger against the Akali government. What the entry of AAP has done is raise the question mark of who will gain from that anger against the government. Now anecdotally what one hears is that in the rural areas AAP has put up a very impressive show whereas in the urban areas the Congress is still very much in the game. If this is true then you must understand again that the nature of the politics in Punjab in the urban areas the BJP contest more seats than it in the rural areas BJP does not contest any seats and to the extent that the anger is directed more against the Akalis than the BJP the urban areas are likely to be much better contested than the rural areas. So, whoever becomes the face of the anti-incumbency in rural Punjab has a huge advantage and that is where I think AAP is I mean rather than as a question who will be impacted the question to be asked is whether AAP has become the front runner I suspect that that could well be the case. So, do you think AAP will gain the Dalit votes which were traditionally with Congress in Punjab? That is a difficult one to see you see what is clear is that the Akali BJP combined is unlikely to win too many Dalit votes. Even traditionally it has not been one of their strengths and this time in the aftermath of all that has happened all across the country the chances are and given the anti-incumbency the severe resentment against the Akali government chances are that the Dalit vote will be totally against them. Traditionally the Congress would be the beneficiary of this, but if the Akalis are putting up as good a show in rural Punjab as we hear they could also benefit from it. On the other hand if the if it is true that in rural Punjab the Jut 6 are preferring up to Akalis that might be a negative for the Dalits they would after all their contradiction traditionally has been with the Jut 6. So, let us move on to UP today is the second phase elections in UP. What do you think will happen in UP? UP seems to be a very unpredictable state. Yes, well UP given the fact that there are so many players in the game despite the SP Congress alliance it still remains at least triangular and in some parts of the state like the first phase western UP there is also a it is a four-conert contest in the fact that the Rajat Singh's Rajat Singh's Rajat Singh's Rajat Singh's Rajat Singh's Rajat Singh's Rajat Singh's Rajat Singh is also a player. So, in any multi-conert contest predictions become far more difficult than in a straight fight. I honestly cannot agree with the analysis which are saying that it is going to be a close fight between BJP and the SP Congress alliance. The way I look at it I cannot see demonetization being a minor factor in this election and if demonetization is a major factor that can either work very much to BJP's advantage or severely to its disadvantage. So, if I had to make any predictions on UP I would say if BJP is not winning it is third it is not second that is point number one. Point number two is that traditionally all media reports have tended to underestimate the BSP for a variety of reasons among them the fact that sections from which media personnel come you would not find too many Dalit news people you know. So, they do not quite get the feedback from those sections and hence tend to underestimate the BSP. I suspect the same thing is happening again. So, if I had to hazard a guess I would say either the narrative on demonetization is working very well for the BJP in which case it is likely to finish as the leading party. If that is not happening you could see a return to the traditional politics of UP over the last two decades which is a SP versus BSP fight. And if I had to make a guess I would say the latter is happening I think it is basically an election to be fought between SP and BSP. So, with this demonetization narrative which BJP is putting forward do you think they have sidelined their own agenda of communal polarization because they want to put forward this that demonetization was done in the nations in the greater good for the greater good do you think that is happening with BJP. Yes and no see the thing with the BJP is that it has always been very good at running parallel narratives. So, to look at any one campaign and say this is the campaign it can be misleading when you are analyzing the BJP. So, there are there is Vikas Kirajniti at one level there is the narrative about how BJP is anti-rich and pro-poor and demonetization representing that at another level and at a third level people like Yogi Adityanath and Amit Shah and so on will also pander to communal politics. So, all three strands run parallelly. Now, the relative emphasis keeps shifting depending on what they feel is working better. Also it will vary from region to region. So, in western UP you might see a greater emphasis on the communal strand in other parts of UP it may not be so accentuated. That is always been the case with the BJP and I think more so in this election where there is a certain desperation the stakes are extremely high because after all in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections they led in 328 out of the 403 assembly segments. So, anything less than a resounding victory in UP in these assembly elections will be seen as a severe come down. So, to that extent the stakes are extremely high for them and therefore, the shrillness of the campaign also becomes accentuated. What are your thoughts about Uttarakhand election? Uttarakhand I think the polls have got extremely appreciated by all the comings and goings you know it is not unusual for what they call Dalbarlu's to be in the contest, but in this particular assembly election in Uttarakhand that phenomenon has become much larger than it would normally be. Part of that is because of the split in the congress halfway through the tenure of this government when Vijay Bhagwana walked out and took a few rebels with him. All of those obviously have had to be accommodated in the BJP and there has also been an attempt on the part of Harish Rawat to show that people are also migrating the other way. As a result you have many people who were BJP in the last election, but will be contesting on congress tickets this time and vice versa you know. The general sense one gets is that unlike in Punjab or in Goa they have contest still remains essentially between these two parties and therefore in the absence of any alternative people essentially have to pick one or the other as a lesser evil. I do not see any signs of the people of Uttarakhand being overly joyous about either party winning. To begin with it seemed like the BJP would have a cakewalk in Uttarakhand given the division in the congress and so on, but there is also now a lot of resentment within the BJP at the fact that so many Dalbalus have got tickets and their own party workers have been ignored as it were. I do not know whether that is enough to chain the outcome of the elections, I suspect it probably would not be. I would still say that the BJP has a better chance than the congress in Uttarakhand, but frankly to the people of Uttarakhand it really does not make much of a difference either way. These assembly elections do you think this will be somewhat verdict on the demonetization policy as well? The answer to that will depend on the nature of the outcome. If for instance the BJP and its allies lose in Punjab, Goa, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Manipur then it is difficult to escape that conclusion. On the other hand consider a situation where let us say the BJP wins Uttarakhand probably does much better in Manipur than it has ever done where it has never had a president remains the single largest party in Goa. Then even if it loses Punjab and Uttar Pradesh it will be difficult to say that this is the result of demonetization. As of now it is difficult to say whether as I said it is impossible to think of a situation where demonetization did not have an effect. It would obviously have a major effect but state to state there may be other factors which override the effect of demonetization. In Manipur for example, demonetization may not be the single largest issue. The most important issue may be militancy, may be the ethnic conflict in the state. Yeah, demonetization will certainly have a huge impact on the elections whether it will determine the outcome is a separate question. Thank you so much for joining us. We will be coming back to you for more.