election 2009 article 1

General elections of India are the biggest democratic exercise in the world. With around 1 billion of population the country undertakes mammoth deployment of personal and resources at task to make sure of fair and just polling to elect the elite for the national throne. The fact that about half of the voting population doesn’t even take part in this exercise is disgusting. Anyways being a management student, I find the whole dramarama highly learnable experience, and over the next few days I would try to apply certain management principles to identify parties, candidates and their candidatures.
This is the first post in this regard as I start with my native state and biggest battleground “Uttar Pradesh”.

Why Mayawati will gain in general elections 09 – Game theory perspective

Mayawati is the supremo of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), who has done exceedingly well in the last assembly elections in UP and came to power with clear majority in a state that has not seen the majority numbers since last 3 decades. Definitely riding on high on that year back achievement, BSP holds very good chance of emerging as the clear number one party from the state.

1) Game theory states that reduce your options and send clear signal to your adversaries that you will stand at your point
Mayawati has since beginning maintained that she would not go for any pre-poll alliance. She had even said to meeting any representative from any political party for any sought of talks and negotiations. This gave clear signals that she will not resort to any party alliance. What this has done also is that it has made many regional parties to break free from their Previous alliances namely UPA and NDA. This will lead to the major parties Congress and BJP to fight with many of their previous regional allies and shall lead to seat loss with the regional parties as majority of them are not that strong alone what they are in the alliance. This shall help BSP to emerge as one of the major third party after congress and BJP with a high number of Lok Sabha seats to its credit.


2) Be Compatible. Network Externalities is said to be the success reason for Microsoft Corporation. Its operating system is most easily available and most compatible with all available softwares. This keeps it in demand and also ensures that future softwares will be written with its operating system in mind.
Mayawati is neutral to both congress’ secular ideology and BJP’s national ideology. BSP’s ideology is just one that is “be in power”. This keeps all her options open after the poll results are out, and no matter how many seats she wins nationwide, she will be one of the major voices in the formation of government at the centre. Hail the new King Maker !!

3) Who chicken out first. In Game theory, there is a game setting with two cars coming opposite to each other for head-on collision and who fears first and diverts from the track is said to have chickened out and losses.
Now Mayawati has undertaken a cool trick this time around. The party is fighting elections in almost every state and has given tickets to mostly affluent citizens like big businessman, in lieu ofcourse of their monetry support to the party. This has made the BSP flushed with lot of disposable cash and, accept this, this has led to a rise in the negotiating power of BSP. Yes negotiations are useful the most for those people who don’t care for its outcome. BSP can negotiate for any role and inclusiveness in the next government it wants because it don’t need that in the first place. The funds are already there, state government is not going anywhere from Mayawati’s hands, what does she care for central government. Yeah make her Cabinet Minister and you can have her talking !! God fobids, if she wins more than 50 seats, she might even aspire to be PM!!! (very very difficult though that people would agree of her being PM, but nobody could rule out the outside chance, some people might call her even Obama of India….bite that!!!!)


Note: Above is written with the premises though that BSP shall win about 30-35 seats minimum, as reported by all major dailies and election pundits across the country.