Elections 99: Insight Post-Poll Survey: BJP, Allies Keep Lead

Spirited campaigning by Sonia and Laloo cuts into the BJP alliance's vote share but it is still within striking distance of the halfway mark.

If the inordinately long election schedule isn't enough, the electorate is now barraged by a surfeit of exit polls, each claiming to be more correct than the other. A relative novelty in India, exit polls have become media events -- dress rehearsals for the real thing on October 6-7. When the final tally is out, it will confirm whether or not these forays into random sampling are just amusing distractions or accurate measures of the mood.

National Forecast (543 Seats)
North
BJP+Allies	89	87	-2
Cong+Allies	28	34	+6
Others	34	30	-4
East
BJP+Allies	55	63	+8
Cong+Allies	42	41	-1
Others	45	38	-7
West
BJP+Allies	61	70	+9
Cong+Allies	56	38	-18
Others	1	10	+9
South
BJP+Allies	48	78	+30
Cong+Allies	44	42	-2
Others	40	12	-28

That there are problems is undeniable. The translation of votes into seats in a first-past-the-post election system is never easy. It becomes doubly difficult because of shifting alliances and an unsettled party system. With the most rigorous of sampling methods, pollsters can go wrong. In 1998, almost all the opinion and exit polls failed to predict the AIADMK-BJP alliance's victory in Tamil Nadu. In this election, there are certain to be similar mistakes because pollsters have rushed to give statewise predictions. While micro-level analysis adds to the interest of TV programmes, it violates a key feature of the polls: the big picture is likely to be more accurate than the finer details.

Keeping the big picture in mind, the India Today-Insight (an associate of ORG-MARG) poll conducted for the first four phases of the election suggests that the BJP alliance retains its edge and is within striking distance of the halfway mark. Thanks to some spirited campaigning by Congress President Sonia Gandhi and her RJD ally Laloo Prasad Yadav, the Congress alliance has added to its vote share in Uttar Pradesh and recovered ground in Bihar. Coupled with the opinion poll conducted in segments that will be voting on October 3, the poll predicts the BJP alliance to win 298 seats, with the Congress alliance touching 155.

The poll trends seem to indicate that the BJP will retain its status as the single-largest party. For the Congress, the election may produce a very mixed outcome. Its share of the vote looks set to increase. Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are two states where a surge is expected. However, these are likely to be offset by sharp declines in Assam, Haryana, Orissa, Maharashtra and Rajasthan. This could mean that the Congress representation in the Lok Sabha is lower than what it was in 1998. Sonia, it would seem, has lifted the morale of the party but has been unable to cope with the regional alliances forged by the BJP.

At one level it is a question of arithmetic. But at the level of chemistry, A.B. Vajpayee has literally swept the board. According to the poll, he is the choice of half the electorate as the best prime minister. Vajpayee's appeal reaches dizzying heights in Assam, Haryana, Karnataka, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu. He scores the lowest in Uttar Pradesh -- an indication that the BJP may find the going tough there.

The final results will determine the extent to which this is going to be Vajpayee's election. The prime minister enjoys an approval rating that is a significant 8 per cent higher than the projected vote for the BJP-led alliance. In other words, if this was a full-fledged presidential election, there would have been no ambiguity about the mandate.

One of the problems confronting the Congress is that Sonia does not have this larger than life image. If Vajpayee is pushing the BJP and its allies, it is the Congress and its two main allies -- RJD and AIADMK -- which are propelling Sonia. Only 24.3 per cent believe she would make the best prime minister. This is 10 per cent less than the projected popular vote for the Congress alliance. In blunt terms, Sonia isn't quite the vote catcher she is being projected to be. In Uttar Pradesh, more people favour SP leader Mulayam Singh Yadav as the prime minister than Sonia. The Congress president may, however, be comforted by the knowledge that she scores above NCP leader Sharad Pawar in Maharashtra.

What should also bother Sonia is the poll finding that her popularity graph is on a downward slide. Compared to the India Today-ORG-MARG opinion poll in December last year, when she was ahead of Vajpayee, Sonia's leadership ratings have fallen. It was 32 per cent in May, immediately after the fall of the Vajpayee government. It fell to 26 per cent in August after the Kargil war, and has fallen by another 2 per cent during the election campaign.

Kargil, it would seem, remains a factor. In the India Today-Insight opinion poll of August, 83 per cent felt that Vajpayee had done a good job managing the conflict. Today, that approval has come down to 74 per cent, with an additional 7.5 per cent saying the war was badly managed. Yet, paradoxically, the aggressive Congress campaign to pin the conflict on the government's negligence hasn't clicked. In the August poll, 51 per cent attributed the war to the government's lack of alertness. In September, only 41 per cent did so. Only in Uttar Pradesh is there rampant scepticism, with 47 per cent insisting the government neglected responsibilities and 46 per cent believing it didn't.

Which only goes to show that perception of events don't happen in a vacuum. It is directly related to people's other experiences.

POST-POLL SURVEY METHODOLOGY
The post-poll survey was conducted on the two days after each of the first four phases of the election among 22,779 voters across 94 Lok Sabha seats. An additional 2,160 were interviewed in constituencies that voted on September 25. Stratified systematic random sampling procedures were used for the selection of constituencies, villages, towns and households. The sample was also chosen on the basis of gender, age and community. The post-poll differs from exit polls. Whereas in exit polls interviews are conducted as voters emerge from the polling stations, the post-poll interviews are conducted within two days of the election at the homes of voters.

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