My money on Modi: Bookies say gamblers betting huge on BJP's win in Uttar Pradesh

As voters pick the best bets to govern five Indian states, the stakes are changing every day in the underground gambling markets of central and east Delhi with less than a month before the poll results are announced.

Just a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi took a dig at rival parties' "minority appeasement politics" in Uttar Pradesh with a remark over qabristan (graveyard) and shamshan (cremation ground), the betting industry was in turmoil.

Bookies this correspondent spoke to said the numbers have changed drastically. For instance, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) moved from a probability of 97 seats as on February 6 to 161 seats on February 21, while in the same period the Samajwadi Party (SP) slumped from 220 seats to 150. The BSP tally, according to the market, hasn't changed much, varying from 66 seats to 72.

A bookie said, "Since PM Modi's statement on February 20 that there should not be any discrimination between Hindus and Muslims, the satta (betting) market has witnessed commotion, with the BJP overtaking the SP-Congress alliance for the first time."

Bookmakers believe that emotive issues work better in elections.

WHAT IS HAPPENING?

According to sources, though the BJP is improving its tally in UP with each passing day, it is still far behind the required majority mark to form government of its own. "In the first week of February, the SP-Congress alliance was way ahead of its rivals and was in a position to form government with 220 seats. But in the last 15 days, it kept losing seats to the BJP with an average of five seats daily," said the bookie.

Others in the market say that Akhilesh Yadav's comment of "Gujarat donkeys", directed at Modi's home state, has had a negative impact on voters. In Punjab, the gambling market believes that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is winning with 58 to 60 seats, followed by the Congress with 48 to 50 seats. The ruling SAD-BJP combine, the bookies predict, is coming a poor third with just 6 seats.

However, a prediction by bookies should be taken with a pinch of salt. While around the 2014 parliamentary polls, the general mood was that the Modi-led NDA was on its way to form the next government, the bookmakers disagreed. As a result, many of them lost a lot of money. The next year, they were able to recover their losses as well as make profit due to the sweeping victory of AAP in the Delhi Assembly election, which no common man who had bet his money could foresee.

DEMONETISATION RAKES BETTING MARKET TOO

"After Modi's charismatic performance in the 2014 Lok Sabha election, no one imagined that the BJP would not come to power in Delhi. The betting market, which follows the sentiments of the common man, had predicted 7 to 8 seats for AAP, 5 to 6 seats for the Congress and 51 to 52 seats for the BJP. But the result was entirely different, as AAP won 67 seats and BJP only 3. Congress couldn't open its account," the bookie said.

The market also feels that demonetisation has had no negative impact on voters in general. "Most people in Uttar Pradesh are happy with the Prime Minister's decision," a bookie said about his feedback from the state. It did not affect even the gambling industry, he said. The betting on election results, just like that on cricket matches, is an illegal market worth thousands of crores of rupees. It is the uncertainty of the electoral atmosphere which boosts the trade. Until two days before the election results, the figures mentioned above are likely to fluctuate every day, mostly making the bookies richer. "As and when electoral politics gains momentum in any part of the country, the bazaar gears up every time. It is mostly the traders who place bets. It is estimated that the betting syndicate this time during the assembly elections in five states will rake in about Rs 10,000 crore by the end of the election process," said the bookie.

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