BJP has done election alliance with nearly 35 other parties like AIADMK, Shiv Sena, etc.
Congress has done election alliance with a large number of parties like NCP, RJD, etc.
Some parties (like are Trinamool, SP, BSP, AAP, etc) are strong within their state. They don't have any election alliance with BJP or Congress. These parties will join BJP alliance or Congress alliance, after the elections are over.
So the coming election will essentially a three way fight between BJP alliance, Congress alliance and a Third front.
In the coming election, neither the BJP alliance, nor the Congress alliance is expected to get a clean majority. So the Third front is expected to play the deciding role. This is bad for India because it means that
- No major decisions will be taken.
- The Third Front parties will extract their pound of flesh (bribes).
- Corruption will increase.
BJP is advertising the coming elections as Modi vs "who else?"; but these are just slogans (Chunavi Jumlas). BJP can't play the economy card in this election because De-monetization and GST have hurt the economy. So BJP is going to play the Nationalism card. I expect the tensions, with Pakistan, to increase as election date approaches near. We may even have one or more terror attacks, to ignite the fire of nationalism, which will help BJP to grab more votes.
