On December 11, the results of five Indian state elections – in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, and Mizoram – were announced. These will be the last state elections before the 2019 Indian general election, about which speculation will now begin in earnest. Predicting national elections is a notoriously difficult exercise; the last three defied many expectations. Given that media commentators project every state election as a trendsetter for national politics, a simple exercise to start thinking about next year’s outcome involves transposing the results of every state election over the past five years onto a national election map. Basically, […]