NEW DELHI: India's biggest metropolises are eagerly looking forward to the Aam Aadmi Party going national and expect it to make a big splash in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, but a majority still view Narendra Modi as a better prime ministerial prospect than Arvind Kejriwal with Rahul Gandhi a distant third.
That's the message from an opinion poll across the country's eight most populous cities — Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune and Ahmedabad — conducted exclusively for TOI by market research agency IPSOS.
The survey found that a third of the respondents thought AAP would win between 26 and 50 seats, another 26% felt it could win 51-100 seats, 11% said it would bag more than 100 and 5% even predicted a majority for the party. Put together, that means three-fourths of all those polled believe AAP will win more seats in 2014 than any party, barring what Congress and BJP won in 2009.
Given that 44% of those polled said they would vote for an AAP candidate if there was one in their constituency, and another 27% said they might, depending on the candidate, it is not difficult to see why the respondents rate AAP's electoral prospects so high.
As for prime ministerial preferences, 58% picked Modi, 25% were for Kejriwal — despite AAP making it clear he is not in the running — and only 14% thought Rahul Gandhi would make the best PM. In Chennai and Mumbai, Kejriwal was preferred over Modi, and even in Modi's home turf, Ahmedabad, 31% thought Kejriwal was the best choice.Respondents were divided on which party would be worst hit by AAP doing well. A little less than a third said BJP would be worst hit, about a quarter said Congress would bear the brunt and a similar proportion said both the national parties would suffer equally. Interestingly, in Chennai, where politics is dominated by two regional parties, 44% felt regional parties would be worst hit.
What's driving this bullish reading of AAP's prospects? The answers to two questions in the survey give us the answer. The first of these shows that 50% feel AAP is not only very different from other parties, it will stay that way and another 24% feel it is forcing others too to modify their politics. A sizeable 26%, however, felt that AAP is different now, but it might find it difficult to sustain this.
Asked what they find most appealing about the new party, 40% cited its "sincere efforts" at addressing issues of ordinary people, another 35% said it is full of honest people who would root out corruption and 24% said the fact that it was involving people in decision making was its best aspect.
That 44% said AAP would help in at least reducing corruption and another 29% felt it would be able to completely eliminate it, says a lot about how positively the party is currently being viewed in India's biggest cities.
Clearly, the perception about whatever the Delhi government under AAP has done in its brief tenure so far has helped buttress the party's image. As much as 70% of those polled said they were impressed by its performance so far. That figure was understandably highest, at 83%, in Delhi, but nowhere was it lower than 60%.
Asked if the Delhi government's moves on free water supply and subsidised power tariffs were economically irresponsible, a majority said they weren't, though 60% in Mumbai did feel these 'populist' decisions were irresponsible. Not surprising in that context was the fact that 61% see AAP as good for economic growth while only 27% say it would be bad for growth.
If the respondents are so gung-ho about AAP, would they be willing to contribute financially to the party and would they be willing to take out time to campaign for it? The two questions threw up interestingly divergent responses. While 47% said they wouldn't donate to the party and only 41% said they would, the response to giving time was almost an exact mirror image — 47% said they would give time while 42% said they wouldn't.
The survey has obvious limitations, like any such exercise. It is restricted to a sample of 2,015 people across the eight biggest cities and hence may not reflect the larger national mood accurately. Also, it was restricted to those aged 18 to 45 and older people may perhaps be less bullish on AAP, if earlier surveys in Delhi are anything to go by. Also, this survey was restricted to those in the top layers of society, SEC A and SEC B1. Delhi has shown that AAP's appeal is much stronger among the relatively less well-off.
All these caveats notwithstanding, what's clear from the poll is that AAP's performance in Delhi is serving as a springboard to a larger national presence in a timeframe few would have anticipated even a few weeks ago. Just how much larger, remains an open question. -TOI
That's the message from an opinion poll across the country's eight most populous cities — Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune and Ahmedabad — conducted exclusively for TOI by market research agency IPSOS.
The survey found that a third of the respondents thought AAP would win between 26 and 50 seats, another 26% felt it could win 51-100 seats, 11% said it would bag more than 100 and 5% even predicted a majority for the party. Put together, that means three-fourths of all those polled believe AAP will win more seats in 2014 than any party, barring what Congress and BJP won in 2009.
Given that 44% of those polled said they would vote for an AAP candidate if there was one in their constituency, and another 27% said they might, depending on the candidate, it is not difficult to see why the respondents rate AAP's electoral prospects so high.
As for prime ministerial preferences, 58% picked Modi, 25% were for Kejriwal — despite AAP making it clear he is not in the running — and only 14% thought Rahul Gandhi would make the best PM. In Chennai and Mumbai, Kejriwal was preferred over Modi, and even in Modi's home turf, Ahmedabad, 31% thought Kejriwal was the best choice.Respondents were divided on which party would be worst hit by AAP doing well. A little less than a third said BJP would be worst hit, about a quarter said Congress would bear the brunt and a similar proportion said both the national parties would suffer equally. Interestingly, in Chennai, where politics is dominated by two regional parties, 44% felt regional parties would be worst hit.
What's driving this bullish reading of AAP's prospects? The answers to two questions in the survey give us the answer. The first of these shows that 50% feel AAP is not only very different from other parties, it will stay that way and another 24% feel it is forcing others too to modify their politics. A sizeable 26%, however, felt that AAP is different now, but it might find it difficult to sustain this.
Asked what they find most appealing about the new party, 40% cited its "sincere efforts" at addressing issues of ordinary people, another 35% said it is full of honest people who would root out corruption and 24% said the fact that it was involving people in decision making was its best aspect.
That 44% said AAP would help in at least reducing corruption and another 29% felt it would be able to completely eliminate it, says a lot about how positively the party is currently being viewed in India's biggest cities.
Clearly, the perception about whatever the Delhi government under AAP has done in its brief tenure so far has helped buttress the party's image. As much as 70% of those polled said they were impressed by its performance so far. That figure was understandably highest, at 83%, in Delhi, but nowhere was it lower than 60%.
Asked if the Delhi government's moves on free water supply and subsidised power tariffs were economically irresponsible, a majority said they weren't, though 60% in Mumbai did feel these 'populist' decisions were irresponsible. Not surprising in that context was the fact that 61% see AAP as good for economic growth while only 27% say it would be bad for growth.
If the respondents are so gung-ho about AAP, would they be willing to contribute financially to the party and would they be willing to take out time to campaign for it? The two questions threw up interestingly divergent responses. While 47% said they wouldn't donate to the party and only 41% said they would, the response to giving time was almost an exact mirror image — 47% said they would give time while 42% said they wouldn't.
The survey has obvious limitations, like any such exercise. It is restricted to a sample of 2,015 people across the eight biggest cities and hence may not reflect the larger national mood accurately. Also, it was restricted to those aged 18 to 45 and older people may perhaps be less bullish on AAP, if earlier surveys in Delhi are anything to go by. Also, this survey was restricted to those in the top layers of society, SEC A and SEC B1. Delhi has shown that AAP's appeal is much stronger among the relatively less well-off.
All these caveats notwithstanding, what's clear from the poll is that AAP's performance in Delhi is serving as a springboard to a larger national presence in a timeframe few would have anticipated even a few weeks ago. Just how much larger, remains an open question. -TOI
When the nice guys didn’t finish last
By winning without money power and muscle power, the AAP has become both a fascinating case study and an important benchmark in the movement toward clean elections
The importance of the Aam Aadmi Party’s stunning triumph
in the recently concluded election to the Delhi Assembly goes beyond
its impressive numbers (28 in an Assembly of 70). It even goes beyond
its being able to form a government (albeit with outside support). Its
greatest achievement lies in its being able to win a clean election,
without having to resort to money and muscle power or without having to
exhort caste, creed, class or religious loyalties. It kept its
expenditure within the statutory limit (Rs.16 lakh for an election to
the State Assembly of Delhi). That any candidate can win an election
today within the limits set by law, even with the support of party
cadres, is a fact to be applauded. But when a political party wins an
election without breaking the election code in any significant respect,
and that too under harsh media glare in the national capital, it is all
the more remarkable. The AAP’s candidates, by all accounts, had very
little money in their pockets. They, however, succeeded in raising
largely small donations from within their neighbourhoods. Their example
provides hope that there may actually be a way out of the spiral of
vastly excessive election expenditure. For, in recent years, all parties
having declared “winnability” to be their “mantra,” have usually ended
up giving tickets to those wealthy enough to fund their own elections.
In addition, muscle power, even criminality, has often been viewed as
bonus points. Once caught in this spiral, most of our political parties
have been unable to find a way out of this impasse. Surely, this is
where the success of the AAP becomes both a fascinating case study and
an important benchmark toward cleaner elections.
The crorepati factor
Over the last several years, there has been a growing tendency for all the established political parties to choose crorepatis
as their candidates. Since all candidates have by law to furnish sworn
affidavits to the Election Commission of India (ECI) pursuant to an
order of the Supreme Court (2002) regarding their wealth, education and
criminal cases if any, some non-governmental organisations have been
collating these figures and putting them up on their websites. At this
point, I need to qualify a few points that are not necessarily
interrelated, for just the bold assertion of figures of crorepatis can
sometimes lead us to draw the wrong conclusions. One, as property
prices have risen dramatically in recent years, anyone owning a house in
a city or a large town becomes, ipso facto, a crorepati.
For example, a house or piece of land purchased for one lakh rupees in
1970, might well be worth several crores today. Paradoxically, there are
candidates who deliberately undervalue their wealth. Having qualified
this, statistics do however reveal that the established parties prefer
to hand out tickets to the wealthy, obviously on the assumption that
they would fund their own elections without overly burdening the party.
This trend is evident from the figures collated by the Association for
Democratic Reforms (ADR) over the last several elections, both to
Parliament and State Assemblies.
Assembly elections
This
trend is also reflected in the figures on the ADR website which reveals
that in the recent Delhi Assembly election, the cumulative percentage
of crorepatis was 33 per cent. The SAD party led with both its candidates being crorepatis (hence 100 per cent), the INC followed with 87 per cent crorepatis, while the BJP had 85 per cent. The AAP, too, had its share of crorepatis
at 47 per cent. Interestingly, the average asset of the INC candidates
was 14+ crores of rupees, the BJP’s was 8+ crore, while the AAP declared
2+ crore. In Madhya Pradesh, the BJP reflected 70 per cent crorepatis,
while the INC had 66 per cent and the BSP 18 per cent. In Rajasthan the
BJP figures were 75 per cent and the INC 70 per cent. In Mizoram, the
MPC fielded eight candidates, all crorepatis, while the INC had
73 per cent and the MNF fielded 65 per cent. In Chhattisgarh, the
average figure of all parties was 22 per cent with the INC at 68 per
cent and the BJP at 66 per cent.
The combination of
money and muscle power (the latter however covert), are increasingly
dangerous signs that we need to recognise and combat. It is fortunate
that our founding fathers, with consummate wisdom, created institutions
that have been able to withstand some of the distortions that have crept
in. Over the years, the Supreme Court, the High Courts, the Election
Commission (and Parliament when it chooses to engage in serious debate),
have through a number of important judgments, orders and legislation
strengthened our democratic framework. The Election Commission has over
the last few decades brought in much greater equality and transparency
to combat electoral malpractices, and has effectively outlawed the
strong-arm methods of yesteryear. The Supreme Court has recently, in
another momentous decision (Lily Thomas vs Union of India, July
10, 2013), removed the protective shield that MPs and MLAs hitherto
enjoyed, which was that even upon conviction for a whole host of
offences, they could continue to enjoy the shelter of
Parliament/legislature, simply if they filed an appeal within 90 days!
Curbing money power
Electoral
money power has been a most difficult problem to resolve. When I was
Election Commissioner and later Chief Election Commissioner, it was
often very frustrating to see how candidates, despite the presence of
the Election Commission’s Observers during election, used all manner of
deception to distribute money and freebies in order to lure voters.
There seemed to be no end to human ingenuity when it came to their
methods. Large sums of cash were ferried in the most unlikely of private
and public vehicles, and in the Karnataka elections of 2008, even milk
vans and ambulances were not spared from the most blatant misuse. While
over Rs.40 crore of cash and freebies were seized by vigilant officials,
unknown amounts of clandestine sums would doubtless have reached their
destinations. By-elections, in particular, were characterised by their
sheer brazenness in this respect. The by-election of Thirumangalam
(Tamil Nadu, December 2008-January 2009) marked a particularly low point
for the Election Commission in this regard. Elections in Bellary in
Karnataka too provided another case study of how far this malaise had
reached. During elections there, a number of poll-related criminal cases
were registered; yet, almost the first step that the newly elected
State government sought to do was to withdraw these cases. In what
otherwise might have been an amusing case study involving our
bureaucracy, the Public Prosecutor was ordered by the State government
to move the court to withdraw these cases, while the Election Commission
passed orders that all election-related offences would instead be
contested in court on their merits, and could not be withdrawn by
executive orders. The High Court was later to uphold the ECI’s position.
These and other such cases of money and muscle power were surely not
those to make us feel proud as a people.
However, it
would be one-sided on my part to paint everything as negative. Far from
it. These aberrations apart, there are a whole host of positives. Unlike
many other countries which obtained freedom from colonial rule at about
the same time and have only enjoyed brief democratic interludes between
long periods of military dictatorship or the most wrenching of
insurgencies, India has been a stable democracy throughout. In India, we
have always held elections on mandated time — every time. There has
invariably been a willing acceptance of the people’s mandate. The loser
has consistently passed on the baton to the winner without hesitation.
The Election Commission is viewed as fair and impartial. Court orders in
election-related petitions have been accepted without demur. All these
are no mean achievements, even if we were to compare ourselves to very
developed countries with a much higher per capita income than our own.
In
this larger context it may help to explain why it is important for us,
as a still evolving democracy, that this recently created political
phenomenon has successfully been able to demonstrate that elections can
be won without resorting to calls of caste, religion, subterfuge, muscle
and money. That the AAP candidates were able to identify the problems
that were troubling their neighbours was because they themselves were
integral to both the problems and the neighbourhood, and, as a result,
neither deep pockets nor muscle had any role to play .
(Navin B. Chawla is a former Chief Election Commissioner of India.)
Moneybags and vote banks
Indians living abroad are unlikely to vote in a general election, but
they can help a political party in many other ways. Although they are
stereotypically seen as moneybags with an ultra-nationalistic spirit who
hope to make a difference from a distance, in the age of the social
media they can also serve as a vital cog in the propaganda machine of
parties. The Bharatiya Janata Party, touted as the party with a
difference, was the original favourite of the most vocal sections of
non-resident Indians, but the party appears to be losing some ground to
the new star on the firmament, the Aam Aadmi Party. Arvind Kejriwal and
the AAP, now seen as the harbingers of change, have captured the
imagination of many NRIs as also some of their money — about Rs. 6 crore
came from overseas contributions. The BJP has sensed this shift as well
as anyone else. The Overseas Friends of BJP, an organisation of
non-resident Indians and persons of Indian origin who back the BJP and
seek investment opportunities in India in return, is now being roped in
for resources other than financial. The AAP benefited hugely from the
buzz created by the middle class on the social media, and not just
financially.
Funds are not exactly a problem for the BJP; as the front-runner in this
year’s Lok Sabha election the party can tap its domestic reservoirs
easily enough. However, the party could not but have been envious of the
manner in which the AAP built up its credibility and social acceptance
through its supporters on Twitter and Facebook. The AAP is a new-age
party in every sense: in terms of organisation, funding, and propaganda.
With its origins in an anti-corruption movement that is only a few
years old, the party captured the feelings of a rising middle class
directed at the entire political class. The so-called referendum on
whether to form a government in Delhi with the support of the Congress —
which was conducted through its website, SMS messages and phone calls —
might have appeared to some political analysts as an outlandish method
of decision-making, but the AAP clearly wanted to emphasise that it was a
supporter-driven party, and not a hierarchical organisation. A vast
majority of India’s poor might still have no access to laptops and
phones, but by demonstrating a willingness to listen, the AAP managed to
expand its constituency not only among netizens, but among wider
sections of the Indian public too. What the BJP and other parties can
really learn from the AAP is not some novel way of reaching new voters,
but the old value of democratic decision-making.
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