I have followed and written about elections for the last 30 years. I have had my glorious successes (Lalu Yadav’s win in 2015, Narendra Modi’s win in 2019) and inglorious failures (Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016 and the BJP’s “loss” in 2024). But never before has a forecast so deeply conflicted me. This week I toured West Bengal (along with other self-confessed election junkies led by Ruchir Sharma), and my most enjoyable moment was a visit to Presidency College, now Presidency University. But that is getting ahead of the story. Throughout my career, I have put a larger emphasis on economic variables for forecasting. Term it the consistency of little minds or any such rejection phrase, but the fact remains that welfare improvement (proxied by state GDP per capita) remains by far the best predictor of winning elections. As far as economic fortunes go, no one deserves the fate of West Bengal. The culturally rich state was also rich in wealth and industry.…