India Opinion Polls 2014 - Punjab

Electoral politics of the state historically has been a clear bipolar contest between Congress (and whoever allies with it) vs. Akali + BJP. However, in the last 2 decades new shifts have begun to take place here. 

Akalis: Parliamentary and assembly elections since 1996 have continued to reflect a shift in the electoral politics of Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) - politico-economic issues have replaced ethno-religious ones. Also discernible is the shift from an anti-centre stand to cooperative federalism and from a politics of confrontation to peace and Hindu-Sikh unity. However, it needs to adopt a new social profile moving beyond its image as a party of jat Sikhs and khatris. 

Peoples Party: Another big shift in the politics has been the emergence of PPP + Left wanting to lead a combination of dalits and marginalized in Assembly Elections 2012. Though the combination could not win any seat they managed to get 6-7% votes. And then the very recent emergence of AAP, its strong anti corruption campaign, the massive recent electoral victory in Delhi and likely fielding of big candidates like Phoolka, Rabbi Shergill etc will definitely be  big factor too. 

All these shifts are bound to cause a dent in the erstwhile congress pockets in the state. The shifts are not massive and sudden though... they are slow and certain and will continue to be so. In the years post 2014 elections, the right and left in the state would be more clearly defined and will have their territories well marked. For instance, the marginalized farmers are surely to move from Akali to PPP/AAP, while the young urban middle class voter might shift more and more towards the BJP/Akali. While we will be watching these developments closely, lets first look at a drabber analysis of predicting how May 2014 would turn out to be.  

ELECTORAL ARITHMETIC

In 2007 Assembly the Akali + BJP, came to power with 45.5% votes and the Congress had got 40.9%. The left that had tied up with Congress had 5.6% votes, and the BSP 4%. In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, Manmohan Singh factor played a huge role to increase the Congress vote share fighting alone to 45.2%. With the Left moving away from Congress, their vote share dwindled to a mere 0.5%. The Akali+BJP held on to their share at 44% and the BSP increased theirs to 5.8%. In the 2009 lok sabha elections, thus in spite of no coalition support, the Congress managed to get 8 seats and the Akali+BJP combine 5.

In the 2012 elections, despite the Akali's rising unpopularity (anti incumbency), the Congress could not cash in and lost the elections. This was due to, a) MSM government's unpopularity was at its peak, owing to CWG/2G/Coal etc. b) no strong tie up with either the left or the BSP. As a result, the Akali+BJP vote share slipped down by 3.5% to 42%, the Congress vote share declined too by 4%. Interestingly, the BSP also lost a percentage. All this was due to the emergence of a third force called the PPP+Left combination. This was made out of some left wing breakaway groups from the Akali Dal with the support of CPI and CPM industrial worker unions. The combine didn't win a single seat but got around 6-7% votes making a huge dent in the Congress vote. 

2014 LOKSABHA

The third force of 2012 will be reduced to an ally of first force in 2014. Most probably the PPP is going to tie up with Congress in 2014, or else they will be swept off by Namo and Kejri waves from the right and the left. Seat sharing with this spent third force would be beneficial for Congress as well. Narendra Modi would be extremely popular in the urban vote bases of Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar, not just among the traditional vote base of Hindu Khatris and Baniyas but wealthy Sikhs too. And Most importantly, the Aam Aadmi politics is going to sweep across all castes and classes. It is going to take away the entire urban middle class left leaning votes as well as draw huge support from the urban 'Jhugggis'. Thus, while in Urban it would be a great contest between the BJP and the AAP, Rural Punjab would see a contest between Congress and the Akalis.  

Our Prediction for 14 Seats (including Chandigarh). 

The Aam Aadmi Party will get 17% of votes, especially after  Phoolka (crusader of 1984 riots) is being declared as candidate. The NaMo wave will definitely help BJP in the urban areas of Jalandhar, Ludhiana etc. to hold on to its votes, the Akalis will face severe anti incumbency in the vast hinterlands. The combine vote share will decrease by 4%, mostly in the Rural, to 38%. The Congress is going to loose heavily and go down to 35% vote share - their lowest ever in Punjab. But along with their combination with PPP the combine can get (35+2.5) 37.5% votes - A marginal edge over Akali+BJP in rural. The BSP fighting alone, without any ally would be reduced to 3% vote share. As has been seen in the Delhi elections, the largest proportional dent AAP makes is in the dalit base of BSP. 

With these vote shares predicted, we see the following tally to emerge:

Akali + BJP    5

Congress       5

PPP               1

AAP               3

For the first time in history, Punjab would witness a tri-cornered contest. All three would look to consolidate their bases as that't the only way to secure more and more seats in the first past the post system. 

Introduction to the Blog - INDIA543

Introduction

This is not another opinion poll but an aggregation and correction of many that are being published and made public every week and shown on news channels as well as printed in news papers and magazines. The results and analysis here rely on the survey data as well as analysis conducted by these pollsters. These results here are formed basis a detailed analysis of past opinion polls performance vis-a-vis the final election results. Each of these pollsters are then ranked (individually for each state) and then given weights, basis which the final results are derived. There is also an attempt to incorporate some corrections basis expected alliances or possible announcements by various political formations as it keeps coming out in the public domain. Our results may or may not prove to be correct in the end but as of now the attempt is to be the best at least statistically.

Why is our poll expected to be better than those published?

An opinion poll, is a survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of questions and then extrapolating generalities in ratio or within confidence intervals. Its proven and is believed that if the sampling is truly random and scientific then the analysis would be able to predict the results accurately, with a margin of error of +/- 5%. What is then the reason that pollsters, in spite of running surveys for past 10-15 years, in the age of 24*7 television and social media, haven’t been able to guage the public mood correctly? Fortunately whats again well known and proven is that the reasons for this are also statistical and are very well known. Of these the main ones are:

1. Non Response Bias: Some people do not want to or cannot answer these complicated interviews while others are very savvy. This more often than not is a result of their socioeconomic backgrounds or their current profession. E.g. a software techie may be keen and enthusiastic to put his point of view across and a beggar may feel shy or under confident. But in universal franchise their voting weight ages are same. That may primarily be the reason why BSPs tally is always considered to be under projected.

2. Response Bias (A): Survey Results may be deliberately engineered by unscrupulous pollsters in order to generate a certain result or please their clients and also respondents may deliberately try to manipulate the outcome of a poll by e.g. advocating a more extreme position than they actually hold in order to boost their side of the argument or give rapid and ill-considered answers in order to hasten the end of their questioning.

3. Response Bias (B): Respondents may also feel under social pressure not to give an unpopular answer. For example, respondents might be unwilling to admit to unpopular attitudes caste and gender bias, and thus polls might not reflect the true incidence of these attitudes in the population. 

4. The Shy Tory Factor: The Conservatives in UK had suffered a sustained period of unpopularity as a result of economic difficulties and a series of minor scandals, leading to a spiral of silence in which some Conservative supporters were reluctant to disclose their sincere intentions to pollsters. This e.g. impacts the Communist opposition in Bengal for their perceived unpopularity in popular media.

So for the purpose of accurate forecasting, we would correct the current set of survey’s weighted average basis the proven errors and thence suggest our final projection. We would go about this state by state for all states and union territories and finally combine these to get a national picture too. In the process we would also try and understand some rapid upward or downward trends (like rise of AAP) and predict possible events (new forming 3^rd front 4^th front) and further improve our numbers. We would also take feedback of our results from the next opinion polls being published and continuously update ours till elections are held or election commissions bans us! 

However finally would like to say that I am doing it for the passion and fun of it. The opinions expressed here would be completely mine and would want those to be unbiased – only as much as possible!