Bengaluru: Bengaluru-based community media platform Eedina has predicted that the Congress will win 13 to 18 seats in Karnataka as opposed to Axis My India’s estimates of up to just seven seats, questioning the methodology of the survey carried out by the Pradeep Gupta-led organisation.
Eedina has given the BJP 10-13 seats, halving the party’s tally in 2019, when it won an unprecedented 25 seats on its own and one more bagged by an Independent who it supported. Axis My India has predicted 20-22 seats for the BJP and 2-3 for its alliance partner Janata Dal (Secular) or JD(S).
Karnataka has a total of 28 Lok Sabha seats. The results for the Lok Sabha elections will be out Tuesday.
Eedina has challenged the predictions of Axis My India largely on three grounds — sampling size, diversity of those surveyed and underrepresentation of voters from poor backgrounds, among others.
Community head at Eedina Vasu H.V. claims that these factors, coupled with lack of clarity on whether a face-to-face survey was carried out, can lead to a bigger margin of error.
“Axis My India has said that they have 69 percent male respondents and 31 percent female respondents. If you take it like that, it will be a serious problem but they have mentioned that it was difficult to get female respondents. But the ratio has been extrapolated to 50:50,” Vasu said in a broadcast by the platform.
Vasu further said that the ratio was 45 percent female and 55 percent male respondents for Eedina, which gives a clearer picture.
Axis My India carried out 5.8 lakh interviews across all 543 parliamentary constituencies as against nearly 1 lakh by Eedina only in the 28 constituencies of Karnataka.
At least five exit polls revealed by major Hindi and English news platforms have predicted that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) will win by a landslide.
The same surveys also indicate that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-Janata Dal (Secular) alliance will win anywhere between 18-24 seats in Karnataka.
According to Vasu, the exit polls present distorted numbers as against the one conducted by his platform, which comprised one exercise before, one during and one after the elections.
Most platforms which have conducted exit polls have not revealed their methodology, sample size and diversity, while Axis My India has.
According to Vasu, Axis My India data shows that nearly 15 percent of its respondents did not go to school, which he claims will lead to errors. He said about 24-25 percent of Karnataka’s population is illiterate.
He argues that people from poor backgrounds tend to vote more while those in the higher economic strata vote less.
“Poor are more illiterate but you (Axis My India) have left out 10% of the electorate which is very important,” he said, adding that people from poor backgrounds tend to vote for the Congress.
Another major concern he raised was regarding the Axis My India survey finding that 2 percent more women were voting for the BJP.
“Around 12 percent more women are voting more in favour of Congress than men,” Vasu said, pointing to the findings in the Eedina survey.
“We carried out a face-to-face survey with systemic random sampling in all 28 Lok Sabha seats and all eight assembly constituencies that fall under them,” Vasu, who is also a self-proclaimed political activist, told ThePrint Monday.
Eedina had also predicted the 2023 Karnataka assembly elections, giving a near accurate 132-140 seats out of 224 for the Congress while most others had not given a clear majority to any political party. Axis My India had predicted similar numbers for Karnataka last year. The two surveys were carried out between February and April in all regions of Karnataka. For the Eedina survey, a total of 95,352 people were asked about 20 questions.
“We asked questions on different kinds of polarisation…caste, class and others. There is a static wave of 30-35 percent for Narendra Modi which includes BJP and the RSS. And there is a counter polarisation to this which is also 30-35 percent,” Vasu said.
The additional support for the Congress, according to him, came from the five guarantee schemes implemented in Karnataka.
The five guarantees of the Congress government in Karnataka — Shakti, Anna Bhagya, Gruha Jyothi, Gruha Lakshmi and Yuva Nidhi — are mainly centered around women.
On 20 May, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had said that under the Shakti scheme of free bus travel for women, over 201 crore rides amounting to Rs 4,857.95 crore had been logged since implementation. Under the Anna Bhagya, the government paid Rs 5,754.6 crore as part of the 5 additional kilograms of rice per family at Rs 34 per kg.
The Gruha Jyothi (200 units free power) had 1.67 crore beneficiaries and Rs 7,436 crore was allocated to fund this scheme, the CM said. Under Gruha Lakshmi (Rs 2,000 for the woman head of the household), Rs 20,293.49 crore had been disbursed to 1.2 crore beneficiaries so far.
Vasu said that the Eedina survey’s three main questions were around corruption, unemployment and inflation and additional probing was done when the respondents made any specific remarks.
For instance, for a question on whether essential commodities had seen a price rise, a resounding 85.30 percent respondents said yes while 9.16 percent said no.
Asked which party this price rise was to be attributed to, 44.17 percent said BJP and 23.07 percent said Congress, according to the survey findings.
On corruption, 11.36 percent respondents said it had come down in the last 10 years. When the respondents who felt corruption had gone up were asked which party should be held responsible, 36.4 percent said BJP, while 21.45 percent blamed the Congress.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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