Great Indian Tamasha

‘The Great Indian Tamasha’ –

Analysis of the 2014 L.S. Election Strategies in Uttar Pradesh

Group 12 | Section A

Pooja Sunder PGP/16/153

Sharan UR PGP/16/165

Soumyarup Dasgupta PGP/16/172

Srishti Tyagi PGP/16/349

Introduction

With the 16th Lok Sabha elections scheduled next year, the great Indian political drama is all set to take the country by storm again. Only this time the stakes are much higher. It is common knowledge that India is riddled with a plethora of problems, from the falling Rupee to the rising corruption. Added fuel to fire has been UPA II’s apparent policy paralysis. While on one hand Congress is banking upon its ‘prodigal’ son to woo voters, BJP has pinned hope on their new star- Narendra Modi.

Uttar Pradesh with 80 seats in the Lok Sabha has become the single most important state for either party. While Congress has decided to contest alone from UP, Mr. Modi is planning to launch his own offensive from Ayodhya. Further, U.P. has two powerful regional parties, SP and BSP, each with their own vendetta against one another. Finally we have the Indian voters, confused and befuddled on one hand, irrational on the other. All these form the perfect combination to design a game wherein, every player chooses his action depending on what the other do, or might do. Further, since the pay-offs are very high, it is expected that when the events actually unfold in real life, the players would take decision after weighing it’s pros and cons.

Through this term paper, we analyze this real life scenario using concepts of Game Theory. Choices available to the players are plenty- tie up with other parties or go solo, allow Mr. Modi (and alienate the Muslim population) or stick with more acceptable leaders and so on. And the game is of course multi-stage, since winning elections is only half the story- forming the Government is what all parties dream of. We have predicted what optimal strategies the two major national parties will follow in UP during...