Data Science Academy Presents
The National Election Prediction Challenge
Are you an election enthusiast who can predict India's elections better than anyone else? On May 4, prediction outcomes are verified against official results declared by the Election Commission of India.
₹1 Lakh First Prize Reward · Zero Entry Fee · Open to Everyone
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Registrations So Far
If you believe you can predict election results accurately — you definitely belong here.
In 2008, Nate Silver was unknown. He had no television presence, no political connections, and no polling budget. He had historical voting data and a model he had built himself.
On election night, he correctly predicted the outcome in 49 of 50 US states. The political establishment had spent months dismissing him.
He repeated the performance in 2012. All 50 states. Then built FiveThirtyEight into the most respected election analytics platform in the world.
Nate Silver did not have access to anything that is not available to a data thinker in India today. The same historical data. The same analytical tools. The same core question: what do the numbers actually say, stripped of opinion and noise?
India Predicts 2026 is asking that question about five Indian state elections. And on May 4th, the Election Commission of India's official results will help us understand whose predictions actually turned out to be accurate.
"The numbers don't care about your instincts. They care about the patterns."
The tools exist. The data exists. The election is happening. The only thing missing is you.
If you have spent years following Indian politics — knowing which way a constituency swings, which candidate the ground favours, which issues actually move voters — that is your model. Jot it down and use it to create your own prediction. Submit it.
If you are an ML engineer who wants to run ensemble classifiers on thirty years of booth-level data, the dataset is waiting for you.
Register now. Data Science Academy guides you on how to get started.
Analyse the data. Identify patterns. Predict the winning candidate for each constituency in the five states. Spreadsheet or machine learning — both are valid. Both are scored purely on accuracy.
The portal closes at 11:59 PM on April 30. No extensions under any circumstances. Submit your best work when it is ready — do not wait until the final hour.
Every participant who achieves 75%+ earns formal recognition. Every valid submission receives a participation certificate.
The Election Commission of India declares results across all five states. 824 constituencies. Your predictions are verified against official results. No editorialising. No ambiguity.
I spent years working with data inside large organisations before building Data Science Academy. One thing I noticed consistently — the people who actually understood data were almost never the ones being asked to make predictions about the future. That job was given to people with opinions, not evidence.
"Every election observer in India will have a prediction for April 9. On May 2, we will know whose was actually built on data."
India Predicts 2026 is my attempt to change that dynamic — at least for one election cycle, in the state I call home. We are giving the data thinkers a platform to show what evidence-based prediction looks like when it is done seriously.
India votes on April 9. May 4 gives us the answer. I want to know how close we can get. This is the first time we are doing this. It will not be the last.
Every election observer in India will have a prediction for April 9. Most of them will be based on instinct, access, and noise. Yours will be based on data. Register today. The dataset is waiting.
Free entry · Open to all of India · Certificates for every valid submission