Delhi elections 2015: Number games; Who will come out swinging

As Delhi heads for polls for the third time in a little over a year, can the numbers from the previous two elections provide clues to which way things will go? Or can the BJP performance in state elections since the LS polls of last April-May provide some pointers? Problem is: Different numbers point in different directions. It boils down to which of them you choose to look at.

Consider the comparison between the December 2013 assembly elections and the LS polls of 2014. In 2013, BJP won 31 seats by itself and 32 with Akali Dal. Its vote share was 33.1%. Five months on, BJP led in 60 of 70 assembly segments and its vote share was up to 46.4%. AAP won 28 seats in December and led in 10 segments despite its vote rising from 29.5% to 32.9%. Congress had eight seats and 24.6% of votes in 2013. It didn't lead in a single seat in the parliamentary elections, its vote share crashed to 15.1%.

It would appear that BJP's lead over AAP is too substantial for Kejriwal and company to bridge -a 13.5 percentage point difference in vote share.Even if BJP were to drop a little from those heights, it should cross the half-way mark of 36? You could, however, question that. First, a 13.5 percentage-point gap is effectively only half as much, if votes moving from one side are going to the other. If seven percentage points worth of votes were to desert BJP and go to AAP , the latter would have a half-point lead, all else remaining same. Importantly , all else is unlikely to remain the same. In the LS polls, Congress was one of the two major contenders, AAP an also ran. The roles are now reversed. It's not unlikely that a sizeable chunk of Congress voters would switch to AAP , which means while the gap remains huge, it may not be insurmountable.

The other number AAP might like to dwell on is that in assembly polls after May 2014, BJP's vote share has been lower than in parliamentary polls.In Jharkhand, it was lower by 8.8 percentage points, in J&K by 9.4 percentage points (see graph). In Haryana, the de cline was much smaller and in Maharashtra the party's vote share went up marginally . But in both these states, BJP was contesting almost all seats in the assembly polls. It contested fewer in April-May because of alliances. So, will Delhi see a repeat of the Jharkhand, J&K pattern? AAP would certainly hope so.

One number that BJP will find heartening is the number of Delhi seats where the party that won in 2013 led in 2014. For BJP , there were 31 such seats, including the lone Akali seat in the assembly . AAP had four such seats and Congress none.Does that mean BJP has that many safe seats, while others have hardly any? We'll know on February 10.