16 May 09 Update:

• India Election Results – Trends – Party Wise
• Pune Election Results – Trends

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Below is a summary of exit poll predictions for India Election Results 2009. However looking at the dismal record of opinion and exit polls in India, we need to look at these numbers more as entertainment than information. Can’t really blame the pollsters as conducting representative sample polls in a country of the size and diversity of India seems almost like an impossible task. Read the rest of this entry »

The election results for the India General Elections 2009 will be announced on the 16th of May. Pune city voted long back, on the 23rd of April 09. So it’s going to be  a long wait before we know if the candidate we voted for will actually make it to the LokSabha, the House Of the People and the lower house of the Parliament Of India. Read the rest of this entry »

Google and Hindustan Times have created a very useful site where you can get the latest election news, MP profiles, constituency statistics, candidate quotes, polling booth locations and more, all personalized to your location. Just specify your city or town, and get election information relevant to you. Read the rest of this entry »

At just 40%, Pune saw it’s worst ever voter turnout for the Loksabha elections. Mumbai was slightly better at 44%. The dismal voter turnout numbers have shocked most of educated India. Political leaders are smirking on TV saying things like “You blame us politicians for not caring about the country, but even the ordinary citizen does not care.” I have no insider info on the matter, but am just trying to apply some common sense to figure out what could have gone wrong. Read the rest of this entry »

Doing some final checks before I finalize the candidate I would be voting for in tomorrows election. Just visited the websites of all the top candidates to check if they have something new to say. Nothing new there. A couple of sites seem to have actually gone down. Next looking at http://myneta.info/pune for a quick and easy to read synopsis of the affidavits filed by the Pune Loksabha candidates. The details of 3 candidates including BJP’s Anil Shirole are missing from the sheet. Read the rest of this entry »

Below are my short takeaways about who I think are the top 6 candidates. There are 10s of candidates contesting for the Pune seat, so there could be other worthy candidates, unfortunately I haven’t heard of them. Read the rest of this entry »

Campaigning for the Pune Loksabha elections has ended, so thought I would have a quick look at what was good and bad about the election campaign in Pune. Read the rest of this entry »

Watching politicians debating about what seemed like non-issues to me, got me wondering about what are the real election issues and what are the qualities that the electorate look for in a MP.  Thought why not create a simple ranking based survey to get the info from friends and readers of HarshadOak.com.  Please fill out the survey – India Loksabha Election Issues – Candidate Attributes Survey . It will take not more than 3-4 min to complete the survey and you will help us all better understand what matters to Indians. I will make the statistics collected through this survey freely and publicly available at http://www.HarshadOak.com on 1st May 2009. Thank you.