‘Hindutva didn’t work': Political analyst Sanjay Kumar on Modi, caste & religion in Lok Sabha 2024

[Music] overconfidence of BJP has killed the BJP the preference for voting for a party has declined compared to 2019 so people are not blindly voting for BJP the way they did in 2019 so they're looking at candidates more carefully prime minister modi's ability to pull votes for the BJP has got there's a decline in that there was a near um you know certainty exit po exact what went wrong according to you with this exit pole business the race is not about getting it right the race is about getting it first on the TV channel there wasn't a single person that we met in the selections who did not speak of anxiety around employment but then the thinking is also unemployment issue it's not something new even in 2019 election um people's anxieties about unemployed was very high people's anxiety about price rise was very high but there was still a hope among the people and the Hope was we will get Ram M poor people did stick with Modi is what you're saying poor people have shifted in favor of Modi in a much bigger manner compared to 2019 so there is a movement clear movement of the poor voter in favor of BJP during The Last 5 Years so if and this is largely because of the welfare schemes so the biggest narrative or the largest proportion of Voters the kind of Voters I met was they should be reelected but with a smaller [Music] majority with the marketing that BJP has done around its welfare schemes there's always this Buzz about this committed core loyal segment that is just you know wants to vote for Modi uh it's a wrong reading of how politics in this country has changed because the dominant narrative is that women have started voting for BJP in a big way across the country that's not some people whom I met from am uh they said we have no love for congress it's not that there is a suddenly a love for the Congress but they said loyalty bonus you can't get every you know in every [Music] election welcome to NL interviews today we have with us Sanjay Kumar co-director of loc csds you've seen a lot of him in the runup to elections he's a political analyst and theologist and for those of you who are serious students of Indian Poli itics I'm sure the locti csds post pole survey that comes out in the Hindu is an essential read it's an essential read for most journalists and like I said for serious students of politics now Sanjay G thank you so much for politics is serious politics is serious what better time than to realize that now this week and actually that's my first question to you if there's one adjective that comes to my mind with this election it's it's been the most hum um Ling election for everyone analysts pollsters politicians of course uh and principally of course let's begin with bti J party this whole Char Nal 240 uh you know not even a simple majority so actually my you know just a broad thing that I want to know first from you is um H how do you understand this fall three big factors in your mind uh that can explain this drop from 303 to 24 especially in the hype of charar uh three factors first Yes Prime Minister modi's magic is still intact I won't say that BJP you know getting only 240 seats means nothing for prime minister and people have now rejected Prime Minister Modi not but yes it is also true that prime minister modi's ability to pull votes for the BJP has got there's a decline in that and this comes out very clearly from the data which we have collected so one prime minister modi's ability to pull votes for the BJP has come down second The Narrative which through which BJP wanted to contest election The Narrative of Hindu uh they wanted to go into the election with the achievement that they have been able to you know like uh go away do away with article 370 that didn't work and the narrative which opposition wanted to take forward that started resonating with the people and that was all about San bantra B I think overconfidence of BJP has killed the BJP uh and when Prime Minister Modi said article 370 for BJP and 400 for the India for the NDA Alliance so opposition started making an connection and some of the opposition leader campaigned very aggressively on this fact that in order to form the government you only need 272 but if BJP the desire of the BJP is to get 370 and why do they need 370 because Prime Minister Modi has said once that in the first 6 months of his coming to power the assuming the third term as the Prime Minister he would bring about big changes so the opposition started hitting hard on this aspect on BJP to say that big thing would be change in the Constitution that there is a danger to the Constitution and the aspect which they want to change in the constitution is provision of uh reservation it started you know started asan was the first place where this kind of picked ground because some of the candidates also said this in speeches yes so it started as a whisper campaign is it really going to happen is it really going to happen so in up especially delit started moving away from BJP in a big way and what contributed to the samajwadi party and Congress victory in up and that accounts for a big decline of BJP was mayawati was not contesting election seriously and that became very very obvious so their core supporters of mayawati who are the dalits the jatav and the non jatav delit they also decided not to vote for the bsp in the same n block way as they have been voting for the party in the past so there is a you will see a lot of movement of delit vote away from bsp toward samajwadi party so I think these are the few things which actually uh you know damaged bjp's electoral prospects in a couple of State Maharashtra being one and up being the other state imagine if BJP had won 65 70 seats in say up or 65 even if they were able to maintain the tally in up or had him done slightly better in Maharashtra they would have got a majority on its own in fact your uh survey says uh this was from the Hindu article where you say that uh close to half the respondents indicated that they voted for a party while a little over oneir focused on candidate so the candidate became very important and you say that there's a clear 5age Point decline in the preference for Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister if one were to compare it from 2024 to 2019 Figures it's true that he's delivered on key promises it's especially the ideological projects it's it's true that when you are having conversations with people there's that General sense that here's a leader who knows his mind you know he's been doing good things that kind of thing so how do we understand this decline that you're talking about this 5 percentage Point decline in preference for modi's prime minister and also this shift from suddenly because you know almost preconceived notion American elections where people want a presidential style you know Modi versus who yeah are we still parliamentary so it seems like people are still very much on that parliamentary representative system no absolutely couple of points first the preference for voting for a party has declined compared to 2019 uh so people are not blindly voting for BJP the way they did in 2019 so they're looking at candidates more carefully and there was a lot of talk about people being not being very very happy with the sitting BJP MPS yes BJP did try to replace a large number of them 113 of the sitting MPS were replaced but I think they made a mistake of not replacing uh sizable number of MPS from up and I think the damage is there prime minister modi's popularity going down by 5% uh what has happened is that the image of BJP as a clean party or as a party which was seen as you know much better compared to other parties that has got a dent because lot of washing machine it has got a dent because of these things and this comes out very clearly from the data which we have collected in the postp survey uh very large number of people believe that this party is no more the same party as it used to be and many people also believe that this party is as corrupt as the other parties um so this you know like taking into bjp's fold of anyone who want to come and join BJP yesterday only 5 days ago you were calling that person or leader as most corrupt Etc but they have been accepted to the party with you know like very very AC acceptable to the party and then the party goes on to field him as a candidate so overall bjp's image has got dented and large number of people also believe that these things are happening in BJP um and Prime Minister Modi is at the helm of Affairs Prime Minister Modi is in the know of all these things everything is happening with his notion because of his that may have contributed to the decline in prime minister modi's popularity and I cited the earlier data that you know in in previous election the Prime Minister abilities to pull votes for the BJP was much higher compared to what we see in 2024 now now one big um so there two or three themes that I want to touch on one is welfare 2019 onwards we are really talking about welfare now 19 with the marketing that BJP has done around its welfare schemes there's always this Buzz about this committed core loyal segment that is just you know wants to vote for Modi what can you tell us about this you know welfarism because there was uh of course modi's image you know as this ration Giver as uh giving you pension giving you money 500 rupees in your account then Congress is narrative and I also want you to contrast this with say just for us to understand the psychology and how much it impacts because um jagun in Andra Pradesh was also known to be kind of like Modi in the sense of delivering of Last Mile there's a there was a sense that Women Voters like him but in one place people completely reject him and there seems to be an indication that welfarism probably wasn't on the top of people's mind like how how do we kind of understand that uh no if I where is M just to add one more Point Mamta again is very uh you know known among women liked among women for providing schemes and she's done really well so on the women factor I think uh it's a wrong reading of how politics in this country has changed because the dominant narrative is that women have started voting for BJP in a big way across the country election that's not huh uh first thing even in a state when you see BJP women's vote shifted in favor of one party it is of it is not to the tune of yadav's voting for a party in a big where Muslims vote siding for a party it's in the tune of 2 or 3% but you see a lot of statewise differences if you look at West Bengal women vote is tilted in favor of mam banery Trin Congress if you go to Karnataka it is tilted in favor of Congress if you come to you know some other state so yes in a in some State you will find BJP women vote shifted in favor of BJP but I would disagree with the statement or disagree with this whole notion which people have been trying to build that nationally there is a women uh vote in favor of BJP much more in 2024 compared to what it used to be earlier the second question of welfare welfare politics did it pay for BJP or not my own sense is that if that had not paid for BJP did pay dividends to BJP if that had not paid any dividend to BJP BJP would have lost more badly yes and why do I say that uh if you look at the bjp's vote among the poor voters we divide the voters in terms of classes based on several factors and classes would be uh poor V poor lower middle and upper okay and poer would constitute who just to Define oh it's a it's a class index which we develop based on your income the asset which you have the kind of house you live in kind of job you do do so it is based on it's not people's own perception that I belong to a poor class or a just for our audience's understanding a poor person person would earn how much in a month like what is the cloud less than 10,000 rupes a month less than 10,000 okay something of that kind uh so what we have seen in 2019 elections 24 elections the bjp's support base or vote share used to be much there was there used to be a wide gap between vote of BJ vote for BJP among the poor and the rich that Gap has narrowed down significantly now so BJP has got 36.6% vote among all classes of Voters among the poor now it is just it is almost reach 34 35% among the rich it is 38% so what has happened more than Congress uh it it it is more than than Congress because Congress there's a huge difference between the vote share of the Congress and BJP nationally because Congress has 25.1% vote and bjp's vote share is roughly 15% higher compared to Congress V so the poor people did stick with Modi is what you're saying poor people have shifted in favor of Modi in a much bigger manner compared to 2019 so there is a movement clear movement of the poor voter in favor of BJP during The Last 5 Years so if and this is largely because of the welfare schemes you mentioned about free ration to a very large number of people so these are the people who have uh sided with BJP they voted for Modi in a big way much bigger way compared to what we saw in 2019 uh why same kind of a welfare scheme worked for Modi in nationally for mam in West Bengal and not for ysrcp in Telangana in in Andra uh because it's just an icing on the cake it's not that that's the only Factor through which you win election so for the icing on the cake you need a you need a cake you need the base and if you don't have the base where do you put this icing so if you start losing the popularity if the perception you know gets built that oh you are somebody a party or a leader is losing election if people don't like your other work it is like if people like your work even if they have not benefited from any of the scheme they tend to say if you don't like that government even if you have got the ration even the previous day and if you ask did you get ration from this government so people choose and then find ways to justify choice they choose and then find ways to justify so that that's interesting because you know when even I felt that on the ground that the red card holders who are the poorest who are getting 35 kg still seemed pretty devoted and loyal to Modi but the 5 kg guys were slightly above felt you know unemployment that was a bigger concern for them so I come to the second big narrative uh unemployment there wasn't a single person that we met in the elections who did not speak of anxiety around employment but then the thinking is also unemployment issue it's not something new would you agree with that or not and I was surprised to see that in your survey it seems that the youth actually did vote for the BJP the BJP appeared to have higher percentage of support among younger voters just one and a half and half% more than Congress it's not it's not very S no not more than the Congress but we look at the average vote share you will never be able to compare any groups vote except for the Muslims who would have voted for who have voted for congress in a much bigger manner because the average vote the difference in the vote share of Congress and the BJP is very large yeah so so there's no compon but you what we try to do is to look at if BJP has got 35 36% vote nationally among the young it is 2% higher okay so that is how we get a sense that young have have voted for BJP in a slightly bigger manner because the average it is higher than the average vote share so why if there was so much anxiety around unemployment how do we again I huh so first going back to this whole question of you know unemployment price rise uh we have seen elections after elections that you're right that you ask this question in any election and people will say unemployment is on a very high prices are very uh on a you know higher side we saw that in up Assembly election we we hel we felt similar views expressed by the people in seam and many other states even Assembly Election but what happened is that BJP got reelected in most of the stat exactly but there's a difference between those State Assembly election and uh if I compare it from 2019 even in 2019 election um people's anxieties about unemployment was very high people's anxiety about price rise was very high but there was still a hope among the people and the Hope was we will get Ram there so there was a hope so if you promise something I would still keep looking forward to Manisha because I expect something to be delivered once you have got that once I get the gift from Manisha because you had promised me that you are going to give me a gift so the BJP has promised that they are going to build the ram Temple so Ram Temple was there pran pratista kacr took place on 22nd of January now people thought we have got our Ram Mand article 370 has been abolished so what happened is that these issues of unemployment and price rise which was lying low on the ground they started you know coming up so they were more visible compared to because now people were not talking about Ram Mand what do we do we have got our Ram Mand that's so amazing what you're saying and it's such a gross miscalculation now if you think in hindsight for the BJP because the assumption that you will have Perpetual loyalty for having delivered something that you promised isn't true voters absolutely miscalculation or wrong judgment about how how do you look at the voters it's not that you know loyal loyalty bonus you get it once once in one year once in 5 year but loyalty bonus you can't get every you know in every election so that's you you had promised that Ram Mand will be there Ram Mand is there people have already voted for and people also look at this way we had voted this government for Ram Mand so we have now got the ram M so now the job is over and they were meant they were voted for this job so what else very very fascinating but uh this whole thing now post pole analysis maybe this sweeping thing that okay aod fadle reason if you look at the five assembly segments within that fad Lo SAA constituency and if you look at the average vote share average uh the social composition of that constituency uh dalits are roughly 30 to 35% and Muslims are roughly 20 22% in different constituencies assembly segment if you if you calculate the population of dalits and the Muslims it is roughly in the range of 45% and that all Consolidated for a candidate yeah a massive consolidation of the two sections of Voters in favor of the candidate and you know what the would that consolidation have happened if they SP had fielded a Muslim you think like them Fielding a passy candidate of uh was also matashi we don't know it would be very difficult to say whether a Muslim candidate would have registered the same Victory or a bger victory or Muslim candidate would have failed maybe a Muslim candidate may not have been the right uh strategy because that might have resulted in polarization of Hindus against the Muslims so I think it was a right move now we can always say it's a right move because the candidate finally got elected elected so but you would reject this analysis key up has rejected hindutva is that a very sweeping thing to take from these elections I think we at least I would try and refrain from this sweeping statement but I think uh we can say that the social justice plank trumped the Hindu plank that's for sure because in large number of constituency that we see the consolidation of the dalits Muslims uh yadavs definitely and also the non yadav OBC and I think akilesh yadav strategy of giving tickets to non yadav OBC cast large number of people belonging to that cast that also worked so social justice the plank of social justice and they kept campaigning on uh like census cast census there is a need to do Class cast sensus there is a need to strengthen the hands of the obcs ETC so I think this resonated with the people much more on the ground compared to this whole idea of Hindu so it's strange because you know I always felt that these are very esoteric Concepts cast sensus I thought it's very and often I would meet people who would say you know people from communi also seemed like it's such a vague concept like do people really feel the one Str that I did feel was very strong whenever I traveled and you know started discussing these issues with the people so the biggest narrative or the largest proportion of Voters the kind of Voters I met was B they should be reelected but with a smaller majority this was one of the very dominant narrative and the and the which you spoke about I was one of those who used to think what is sensus all about uh but on the cast sensus we kept asking this question in several elections and we used to get a sense a very large number of people would say census but I used to say the Congress and opposition has failed to you know complete that cycle or that Circle because they used to think cast sensus but what next they failed to convince the people people that if you have a cast census how this is going to how or why how there is a possibility that this will change the fortunes this this can change the your life so that cycle was not getting complet from a bureaucratic exercise of H so but but I think second third fourth fth uh I think this issue of started having a connect with the people and as I mentioned earlier also connect why BJP is aiming for a big majority because through a big majority they will be able to change Constitution and the one aspect which they want to change in the Constitution a very vital aspect is about reservation I would say you know like Harmon started had to suffer such a big losses in so there's so much you know it's such an interesting thing that become such a strong narrative at a time when in the runup to elections this comes out very strongly in our survey also that tell us it it is important to have a strong opposition yeah majority of people that you were ping with said this which is so interesting because uh forget you know maybe the right-wing media or media that supports the Modi government but even those in opposition or in the left had kind of started making us believe that India doesn't have that Democratic fiber that people want authoritarians people want strongman uh you know that maybe we're going to go Russia we're going to go China's way but this is a complete Ulta of that narrative no I would still say that if we ask this question and we've been asking this question in other surveys what kind of a leader do you want uh the desire for having a strong leader is still there but strong leader doesn't mean that he should not be listening to others so you need a strong leader but still you can have a strong leader in the parliament in the ruling parl government but you can also have a strong leader along with a strong opposition so the desire is it's like both moving on the parallel lines yes we need a strong leader to take country to the pass of path of progress but we also need a strong opposition or a sizable opposition so both narratives are tra traveling on the parallel lines do you find something special about up because suddenly a lot of people have discovered a love for up but you know is there something special happening in that belt when it comes to this sense that we want to be heard we don't want someone who thinks that they can they know best you know uh or is that just again we are just falling convenient no I think I think it's the most important thing is the social Coalition they were able to build because we uh in 2019 when bsp and SP formed an alliance everybody thought that this is the best social Coalition which can be built against the BJP uh that could have worked much better if there was no balakot air strike so balakot air strike actually uh diminish the impact of or whatever impact samajwadi party bsp Alliance could have made in up so but the key factor is the social Coalition and also U like anecdotal from different constituencies one or two constituencies I think at least I can tell you about amti some people whom I met from amti uh they said we have no love for congress it's not that there is a suddenly a love for the Congress but they said in our day-to-day life we have we are witnessing that you know lot of people our own people are not getting any not job but opportunities to earn and this has been taken over by large number of people from Gujarat so if you want to hire a contractor if you want to do anything so you will find only the people from Gujarat around you and he said that is what has upset a very large number of people in a some some consitency yeah some con the Prime Minister won but with a much very low margin so this is a narrative in few constituencies in some constituencies wrong ticket distribution some constituencies maybe uh you know within the BJP not that coherent campaign but I don't find a narrative which cuts across from the Western up till the Eastern up to say this is what is h what what was happening in up which has resulted into you know like the sudden decline of the BJP if we have to if I have to look for that narrative it's only The Narrative of social justice but I really want to come back to this fascinating aspect of what you're touching on because I think this is what makes postp studies or understanding voters so interesting that it's never one thing and there are so many em issu and there are few people in the media and the media house like you and news laundry who who is paying so much attention to the postp findings thank you for that thanks yeah in fact we paid no attention to exist they are only paying attention to postp I'll come to that also but one last question on the big narrative this election and then I want to talk about the voter this fascinating you know emotional practical uh transactional you know behavior that a voter can have um this rural distress thing is also very big and now postf Factor we are saying to India Inc is also saying rural distress is a thing even though India was Rising just one week before but um I was just wondering that you know this is a pan India thing it's not likea Ral distress it's not like rural distress unemployment price are themes across India but then how do you [Music] explain if you look at the contrast between up and Bihar what was the one big difference the one big difference is the delit vote if you look at a movement of delit vote in up it's moving away from BJP moving away from bsp and going to samajwadi party and the Congress Alliance that's not the case in Bihar because the delit party the two delit parties in Bihar um the ram bilas Pan's party and Jan ranji's party they all they both were allies of the BJP so there is very little movement of the delit for in favor of India Alliance in in of rjd and Congress in Bihar and that that has made a whole lot of difference also the pattern of ticket distribution I think samajwadi party did extremely well with regard to pattern of ticket distribution compared to Tas y we know we heard so many stories of you know people candidates being unhappy with the pattern of ticket distrib look at Papu Yad he was denied ticket and he contested as an independent so these are some examples to suggest why uh I would you would find at least I find it very difficult to figure out one big narrative to explain uh the election verdict and I picked up this example of up and Bihar there there's another you can you can keep picking the such examples urisa and Bengal yeah in one state in one yeah in one state BJP succeeds so much and in another state BJP fails so identity Still Remains very important absolutely it remains important and in this election it was far more important compared to 2019 election in 2019 it was more about nationalism it was more about uh national pride National Security Modi being the prime minister in this election it was more about social Coalition social justice and that can easily flip tomorrow if there's a situation where you know there are internal disturbances or where uh you know there are trouble at the border or anything you may suddenly have all these things invert and people feel K we need you know it would be incorrect to assume that BJP has lost elections badly even in terms of seats yes they have lost 63 seats but look at the vote percentage just 1% decline compared to the Past election and that they've been in power for 10 years 10 years 1% deine I think judge with their own marketing I think if BJ if if there was no Nar by Prime Minister Modi that par maybe this result would have looked very decent for many people since he had already set a target for BJP that so people are looking at as a big defeat for BJP yes bjp's seats have gone down but can we really say that BJP got defeated badly I don't think I ready to accept or I'm ready to say that BJP got defeated badly yes bjp's seats have come down look at the gap between number one and number two party 140 yeah it's not a small Gap more than the double and this brings me to exit polls because I think one of the reasons also why uh I mean there are many reasons why we're looking at this as a shock for BJP because they their own narrative and everything that in the runup to the election seemed in favor of BJP including you know agencies or the media so then it seems like such an insurmountable force was you know at least humbled if not defeated but um exit polls now this was just a fascinating election where I think apart from the basar who was kind of close to BJP numbers Congress they got it massive wrong and there was a lot of smugness at least before elections before the results that we are absolutely right there was a near um you know certainty exit pole exact po uh reporters who' been on the ground had started completely you know editors who you know they have reporters in their own organizations who've gone out and recorded discontent about unemployment whatever was suddenly setting all that aside and going in this exit polea Char par you know sentiment just what went wrong according to you with this exit pole business very difficult for me to explain this because I I have not seen the methodologies of all the exit pole it is like a patient you are a doctor a patient goes for his or her treatment to you and I'm also a doctor and somebody's asking me so what is the problem with that patient I haven't seen the do that patient how do I tell you what is the problem with the patient but generally if you tell me if somebody tells me you know about some features I would be able to make a good guess or sometime a bad guess that what may be the problem with that patient why he not sleeping why is unable to sleep whole night so I might I might make some good guess so some good guess about why exit poles have failed so miserably uh one most of the exit poles are in a hurry to the the race is not about getting it right the race is about getting it first on the TV channel H so the last day of poll is on the 1st of June and you come out with the numbers by 6:30 7 7:30 on the 1st of June by the time in many conses the Voting is also taking place and I'm sure all those people who have put out the number on the 1st of June at 6:30 7:00 7:30 would have winded up their um data collection exercise by this time 2:00 3:00 if you look at bjp's performance in the six seven phases of poll and this is the election commission data this is not exit poll look at the performance of BJP in the last 57 constituencies which went to poll in the seventh phase miserable performance BJP has got only 20% vote in those 57 constituencies which went to poll in the last phase and if you look at bjp's overall vote share it's 37% it is also true that the last phase of poll the conses which went to polls on the last phase was slightly weaker for BJP and when I say slightly weaker I'm comparing it with the performance of BJP in 2019 election in those 57 constituencies but not as weak as the poor performance of BJP in the last phase so I'm not saying but maybe some correction would have taken place so from 40% vote suppose if somebody had said 38 it would have looked much better so that's one I think and second exit poles as a signs exit Pole or you say preo or or a survey as a method is only equipped for giving you the direction it is not equpped for giving you each and every details it's not a CT scan you cannot do a CT scan through a exit pole of each and every candidate that's a mistake many people who do exit polls are doing they're trying to present the exit poll result as if this is the result and as you know one of the channels keep saying this is not an exit poll this is an exact pole how can exit pole be an exact pole so also like we are now analyzing bjp's good performance decent performance as a defeat for BJP because the pitch was raised very high by by the BJP same is the case by lot of exit polls because the pitch is like oh this is the poll now you don't even need to count the votes it should not be presented that so breaching don't breach the Mandate of the science or the technique the Mandate is it gives you the direction it gives you theis yeah it gives you the direction that this is the way in which elections have moved BJP is likely to get 40% votes okay they got 37% vote which should be looked okay in terms of vote percentages but if you convert those vote share into seats and that is what has happened you may look very horribly wrong so that's what the question is should the seat projection end because you can just give the vot share or you can give the sentiment why are we getting into this whole thing of it's all about maret 360 80 400 it's all about Market Market forces as you know that csds also does postp survey we gave our estimates about vot share but we don't try and convert into two seeds but if we don't try and convert the vot share into seats nobody is willing to support us financially the day we start thinking that we are going to convert the vot share into seats and give it to a media house a television channel we would be able to generate a lot of financial resources to support our surveys so it's Market driven if you don't come out if you don't give the television channel or the newspaper the number of seats they won't be willing to give you money so I think this is the we're glad we have a csds and we have we glad we have the Hindu which is publishing this in such detail so that we can actually look back see what the trends are saying no the loti CSD team is thankful to Hindu as well because we have a long partnership with Hindu we started in 20 2004 Lo SAA election and again remember that was also a very historic election yeah that is the election where when BJP lost that election and we have continued our long-standing partnership with Hindu and they give so much of space to publish and they do support you know even small support for conducting these postp survey but csds vote share also was 40 for BJP plus minus three so let's let me give you uh the exact vote our estimate we estimated 23% for Congress and Congress has got 21.5% vote we estimated for congress Alliance 2 12% they have got 12.7 we estimated 40% for BJP BJP has got 36.6 and for BJP allies we estimated 6% they have got 6.3 or 4 so BJP we have also calculated the margin of error which is 2.8% so it is well within the margin of error but yes we would have been happy if we had under slightly given or estimated slightly lower estimates for the BJP we the estimate would have looked much better in a sense but that's our estimate but also remember we operate with very small sample H our sample size is 19,6 122 but do you also know that what is the sample size of other exit poles in several lakhs yeah 5 lakhs 6 lakhs 7 lakhs 2 lakhs I'm not saying that if we had taken 2 lakh sample or three lakh sample we would have been absolutely on dot but yes sometimes slightly bigger sample would have helped at least building our own confidence um but we operate with very small samples but very carefully randomly selected do you also feel this election one of the things that tricked pollsters was the fact that people weren't really telling the truth about who they're voting because I felt that a lot that people were judging you first then if you start asking them but isn't this an issue isn't that an issue they realize you're open to the idea they suddenly fli and because in the survey we ask very direct question which party you likely to vote for we don't ask this in open we actually try and maintain the secrecy of the respondent it's on the app so we hand over the phone to the respondent to Mark whichever party they have voted for we don't know which party he or she has voted for but when we were doing the tabulation in many state you get a very sizable number of no opinion they have not expressed their opinion they have they have given response to all the question but except for that voting question that's one big data that the the proportion of no response has gone up slightly higher in many states why do you think that is that people don't want to huh maybe because people were also a little uncertain maybe which whom to vote while we have done the post pole this is only after people have already voted but people maybe little suspicious don't want to reveal also anecdotally if we if when we were traveling to different places so some people would say when you ask this question in this is not formal survey taking place but in a you know casual conversation so also this sense that they didn't they were a little more more hesitant expressing their political views expressing their voting preferences in 2014 compared to what it used to be earlier do you have any understanding on why that may be maybe this many some people also felt that this is a tighter election it's not one wave that you know like it's Modi Modi Modi Modi all the way if that's the case then people are free to say you know I'm voting for Modi this is more I think this was more among those who didn't want to vote for BJP but they were reluctant to reveal this maybe in a public domain in in in public place because the desire was not to vote for BJP uh if you notice one of the questions which we had asked in our preo survey and also in the postp survey if you look at we ask a question do you want this government to be reelected this is the your internal desire do you want this government to be reelected and the number of people who want this government who wanted this government to be defeated was higher in 2024 compared to what we saw in 2019 but when we ask the same respondent same set of respondent which party you're likely to vote for so the V vot was higher compared to the desire that this government should get defeated so what was happening is that even if you the desire was this government should not get reelected for several reasons but some of them tended to again vote for BJP because maybe they thought so this perception also you know helps the BJP what so there is a there is a there is a voter called in my opinion reluctant BJP voter theyve ended up voting for BJP but they were reluctant to vote for BJP so on the continuing on the exit pole thing now there's a lot of clamor around it he the opposition wants a JPC probe you know one of the big posters who got it completely wrong access my India pradep Gupta he was crying you know on air is this Vengeance now suddenly after enjoying the whole tamasha AB everyone wants blood so do you think exit polls should be banned should we just stop talking about it do you think there should be some rep repercussions because apparently now the thing is that it changed the market people may have lost money there's now questions about you know was it a manipulation what do you think I have no idea whether there was a manipulation or not but yes we all know that exit pole estimates got horribly wrong I'm not in favor of banning the exit pole totally that doesn't serve the purpose but I am completely in favor of laying down guidelines for such polls there has to be some guidelines at the moment there is no guidelines there is no rule you can say whatever you want you can actually do your preo for 2029 right away and you can say in 2029 X party is going to win how many seats without doing anything no guidelines no restrictions nothing so I am all for laying down strict guidelines for the polls if you do a poll what all you need to follow if you release a poll whether it is an exit poll or a preo survey what are the mandatory things you have to put out in public domain that will make it more it will that will make exit pole and pre-o exercise are more meaningful rather than just throwing out a number so this throwing out a number is should absolutely be I'm not saying banned but make it mandatory you have to put out these details and the data should be open for any scrutiny if you want yeah because we're not even sure if many of these posters actually went and talked yeah it could have just been a telephonic thing which can be horribly wrong I mean who wants who has the time to even like carefully answer questions Tel absolutely absolutely there could be several issues telephonic yes a large number of them are collecting data over telephone um we don't know whether everybody is really collecting the data or not who knows and sampling lots of lots of issues about that so coming back to the loti poll I just want you to tell our audience uh things that surprised you this time any data points that struck out to you I think we in our post pole survey we don't only ask the voting question and the popularity question we ask a lot of questions and some of the question which was striking to me it's all about how do Indians see about minority majority question and it was a pleasant surprise to me and I felt very happy looking at the responses of the people uh on question like the government should treat the minorities the same way treat it treats the majority and a very large support for for that 70% of the people believe that minorities have the same minorities should have the same status in the society they should have the same say in living in this country like a majority here so this whole minority Muslim Hindu Muslim thing is unnecessarily being played out by the political parties and mostly at the time of election and I think they know that if you play it out at the time of election it can pay you some electoral dividend but in the day-to-day life Indians are not like that if we are not you know ready to attack each other coexistence living together is what is coming out very strongly from the survey so very pleasant surprise and I was very happy and I have been citing this you know like this findings to many people I've been telling people that look this is what India is all about BJP you know inducting lot of people tainted background and I used to say this will not be seen as good by the people of this country and it comes out very clearly from the data that they don't like this this aspect of BJP so I think people watch very very carefully what political parties are doing and they express their opinion whenever they see a moment for expressing their opinion which we have collected in our postp data and the heartening thing to know is they constantly want their politicians to be on toes you can't just do something expect loyalty forever you're constantly going to be judged and evaluated which I think is a great thing this election has up absolutely if politicians had to go through your poll what is the one thing they should learn uh BJP and opposition what lessons can they draw from what the voters have said this time I think first there's a limit to uh if you if you want to use religion as a as a tool to mobilize the voter so there is a limit there is no one tool which can guarantee you success you have to work uh you have to deliver to the people and only promises does not help so a lot of things I think there are uh things for the politicians to learn um but I think at the at this moment these are the few things which comes to my mind uh that earlier we talked about social Coalition it worked this time but if you don't deliver in the next 5 years this may not work so there is no fixed what we call formula of winning election there's no fixed formula this is not like building a if you want to construct a building you have a design on the on the piece of the paper and if you follow that design you will be able to construct the exact same exact exact same building so there is no template of winning election the template has to keep shifting sometimes you have to work harder for the people so that there's no fixed template the temp yes in 2024 election the template of social justice has worked but did work in 2019 so there is no guarantee that this template is going to work for the opposition in 2029 or even in the State Assembly elections which are due in few months time elections are due for Maharashtra Delhi uh harana jarand so there is no fixed template you have to understand the mind of the voter you have to fulfill the aspirations of the voter and this is for all political parties whether it's Congress BJP or Regional parties yeah great that's what keeps elections so interesting and that's what keeps the studying of voter and voter pattern so interesting we're very glad we have someone like csds that's invested in this uh I urge all our readers definitely pick up the Hindu editions even if you haven't missed the last two uh you know days of catching up on what the polls are throwing up I think you should go back and definitely check it out it's worth uh giving some time to because now that the dust has settled all the sh shaba is gone we can actually just calmly see and this is one Endeavor that will help you do that thank you so much for staying with us thank you s thank you

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Id: NCQRVh1d8S8

Length: 51min 59sec (3119 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 09 2024