Lok Sabha polls: A look at India’s bellwether seats — whoever wins these, wins the election

To get a sneak peek into what the election result could turn out to be, political observers have been studying opinions and reactions of voters in India’s bellwether seats.

By definition, a constituency that votes for the political party which eventually forms the government is called a bellwether seat.

While there is no scientific basis to this, bellwether constituencies usually act as a marker for the final results.

Not too many constituencies have got the winner right for a long period of time at the national level. Therefore, we are presenting three lists of constituencies based on how many times they got the winner correct between 1977 and 2014.

Here’s a list of India’s bellwether seats and their strike rate since 1977:

Seats that got all of the last 11 Lok Sabha polls correct

Valsad, Gujarat
West Delhi, Delhi

Seats that got 10/11 correct

Beed, Maharashtra
Chandigarh, Chandigarh
Faridabad, Haryana
Gurgaon, Haryana
North West Delhi, Delhi
Palamu, Jharkhand
Ranchi, Jharkhand
Shahdol, Madhya Pradesh

Seats that got 9/11 correct

Banaskantha, Gujarat
Bhilwara, Rajasthan
Bhiwani Mahendragarh, Haryana
East Delhi, Delhi
Ganganagar, Rajasthan
Jamnagar, Gujarat
Junagadh, Gujarat
Karnal, Haryana
Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh
Kurukshetra, Haryana
Kushi Nagar, Uttar Pradesh
Mandi, Himachal Pradesh
Mandla, Madhya Pradesh
Nashik, Maharashtra
Paschim Champaran, Bihar
Porbandar, Gujarat
Sundargarh, Odisha
Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh

Interestingly, most of these seats are in the ‘Hindi heartland’. None of the 28 Lok Sabha seats mentioned above are in southern India where regional parties are more dominant.

Note on methodology: A major delimitation exercise was carried out in 2008. As a result, boundaries of several constituencies changed. Therefore, newly demarcated constituencies have been matched with the electoral history of the geographical area or the name of the old constituency. For example, the Bihar’s Paschim Champaran constituency was formed in 2008. Hence, the electoral data for that seat comes from the erstwhile Bettiah constituency.

By-election results have not been considered. Victories of pre-poll allies have been included. For example, the Nashik Lok Sabha seat was won by Shiv Sena in 2014 — BJP’s pre-poll ally.

It is to be noted that the Ranchi Lok Sabha constituency was earlier in Bihar and is now in Jharkhand.

Why was 1977 used as the starting point for the data? The strength of the Lok Sabha was capped by the Constitution (Forty-Second Amendment) Act, 1976. Till 1976, constituency boundaries were regularly redrawn on the basis of the latest available census data. As a result, there were 489 seats in 1952), 494 (1957 and 1962), 520 (1967) and 518 (1971). The 1977 general election was the first under the new guidelines and had 542 seats — closest to today’s 543. All constituencies, except for those that saw change in 2008, follow the same boundaries since 1977 polls.