DEFECTS OF OPINION POLLS

In fact, these opinion polls make independent experts wary on several counts, first of all because of their very sample sizes. To a layman these sample sizes, running into thousands, may appear impressive, but in fact they (14,000 or so out of more than 55 crore) are hardly 0.0025 per cent of the total electorate. One may well guess how much (or how little) representative such samples are.

A related issue is of what experts would call the "margin of error." According to statisticians, in any sample survey the margin of error allowed should always be less than the size of the sample. But precisely this thing was found lacking in the recent opinion polls. All these surveys projected the margin of error as plus/minus three per cent of the electorate. This comes to some 180 lakh souls while the maximum sample size up till now was 14,000, i e far far below the margin of error the surveyors allowed themselves. (Deliberately or innocently, one may well ask!) In other words, in all these opinion polls, even elementary statistical requirements were given a go-by for the sake of narrow electoral considerations.

As for the overridingly urban character of samples in these opinion polls and their carefully worded questions which create an in-built bias in methodology, the less said the better. A recent "opinion poll" conducted by the ABVP among Mumbai students was found full of motivated questions like: Do you think the prime minister's office should be occupied by a foreigner or by one who cherishes India's culture and traditions? Here the inherent bias of the questionnaire was more than overt. In case of the polls conducted by "experts," there may not be such an overt bias, but it was there all the same.

CALCULATIONS LIKELY TO GO AWRY

It is therefore not surprising that the BJP's bosses now seem panicky though, by the time of writing these lines, only one phase of polling has taken place. It seems all their calculations are set to go awry. For example, in such parliamentary constituencies as New Delhi and South Delhi which are predominantly middle class areas, the voting percentage was as low as 42 per cent, in fact the lowest to date. This has its own tale to tell. For, in these areas, it is precisely the middle and particularly the upper middle classes that did not turn up to cast vote. But it is these very segments of population who, the BJP was thinking, would be motivated to vote in its favour on issues like Kargil!

Turning to Maharashtra which this writer has extensively toured since the poll process began, no doubt the division of anti-Shiv Sena-BJP votes between the Congress and the NCP would go to benefit the communal combine to an extent. However, the latter's hopes of sweeping the Lok Sabha as well as state assembly polls are not going to materialise.

It will be noted here that it was this very expected division of anti-SS-BJP votes between the Congress and the NCP that had prompted the ruling combine to opt for simultaneous state assembly polls though the assembly still had some months to go. But now it appears the Shiv Sena and BJP are in for trouble, and they have already started abusing NCP leader Sharad Pawar on whose capacity to eat into the Congress votes they were banking upon. After the polls the communal combine may well be found repenting that they had made a very big mistake by recommending simultaneous assembly polls in the state.

ANDHRA SCENE

Another state where the BJP's calculations are probable to go awry is Andhra Pradesh where the party has entered into an alliance with the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP). It will be pertinent to recall here that when the BJP led combine had failed to win a majority in the last (1998) Lok Sabha polls despite all its efforts and antics, it was the TDP whose support "from outside" had enabled the combine to form its government. However, as the election of a TDP nominee to the post of Lok Sabha speaker goes to show, this support from outside was not without its quid pro quo. Andhra is also to have assembly polls simultaneously with the Lok Sabha polls.

Opinion polls have predicted an almost landslide victory for the TDP-BJP combine, but the ground reality appears to be otherwise; as per a Hindustan Times report even senior TDP leaders have admitted that there is a strong anti-TDP-BJP "undercurrent" in the state.

But it is not the case only of the proverbial anti-incumbency factor at work; many more issues are involved. For example, the economic policies of the computer wizard chief minister, Garu Chandrababu Naidu, have sent the cost of living sky high for the common masses in the state. At the same time, the chief minister's capitulation before the World Bank conditionalities, which has become a big issue in these elections, has led to a drastic slashing of various subsidies, imposing further heavy burdens on the state's population. One will recall that, among other things, it was also the TDP's positive attitude on the issue of subsidies that had catapulted the party into power.

The TDP's open alliance with the BJP, in a state which has a big chunk of minority population, is also likely to take its toll. Till recently the TDP thought it could hide its volte face behind the plea that it extended outside support to the BJP led combine in order to prevent the Congress from forming its government. But now, after its poll pact with the BJP, the TDP is not in a position to take even that plea whose reality was, otherwise, known to the people from the very outset. This open alliance with the BJP has thoroughly alienated the state's minority population which was solidly behind the TDP till March last year.

The TDP's alliance with the BJP has also cost it in terms of ideology. Since its very formation the TDP had been known as a staunch champion of a federal polity and of democratisation of centre-state relations, etc. But, in order to have a poll pact with the BJP, the TDP changed its stand on these weighty issues of Indian democracy also. The TDP did not protest even when the BJP led centre tried to dismiss the elected RJD government of Bihar by grossly misusing article 356; what was heard from it was only a faint murmur though it could well have forced the BJP government, dependent for its very life upon the TDP support, to retrace its step. This volte face of the TDP has alienated the democratic masses in the state.

 THE LEFT IN ANDHRA

There is one more crucial factor which is likely to cost the TDP very dearly. For the last one decade and a half, appreciating the TDP's stand on the issues of secularism and federalism, and whatever pro-people measures it took now and then, the two communist parties had been solidly backing the TDP and stood with it in every contingency. In fact, in 1984, after the TDP government led by its founder, late Shri N T Ramarao, was dismissed by the centre, it was the Left that proved instrumental in making it an all-India issue and forged a countrywide agitation against the dismissal. On this issue, the CPI(M) and CPI activists even faced a brutal police lathicharge near the Andhra Bhavan in New Delhi. And, ultimately, it was this very all-India agitation that forced the centre to retrace its step and reinstate the Ramarao government -- the first victory of its kind in post-independence India. This role of the Left in forging an all-India agitation and thus helping revive the state TDP government was publicly acknowledged by its late leader Ramarao.

Moreover, the two communist parties, which have a substantial presence in parts of the state, lent a great degree of credibility to the TDP-Left alliance. But now that the Left has severed its links with the TDP following its pact with the communal BJP, the TDP is bound to suffer a big loss of its image, apart from the pro-Left votes.

In these elections, it is for the first time that the two communist parties are contesting all the seats in Khammam and Nalgonda districts, two big centres of the glorious Telangana armed struggle of 1946-51, and are also contesting a number of seats in other districts of Telangana. They are in fact determined to make deep inroads in the state, and there is no doubt that, whatever be the poll results in so far as the two communist parties are concerned, these parties are going to make substantial gains in the state in political terms.