When Dr Prannoy Roy responds to our questions over email, he tells us the edits have been made on "the bumpiest road I have ever been on, between Gorakhpur and Varanasi". For the last few days, the veteran journalist, synonymous with psephology in India, has been navigating the length and breadth of Uttar Pradesh, in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, doing what everyone knows he does best. His most recent interview was with Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and wife Dimple Yadav, who spoke to him about their decision to not take the Congress along.

"This is the most exciting and important election we have ever analysed. The problem is we seem to say the same thing before every election," he shares with us. Yet, his new book, The Verdict (Penguin Random House), which he has co-authored with election expert Dorab R Sopariwala, which uses rigorous psephology and original research, reveals why we are at the cusp of something huge.