Karvy & Cvoter Polls: Karnataka Stuck in a Time Warp! Nothing Changed Since 2013!!
Monday, April 23, 2018
For
many of us living in Karnataka and follow both national and state poltics very closely,
the findings of the IndiaToday-Karvy and News9-Cvoter pre-polls ended up flummoxed.
Both polls suggested that the vote shares of major parties were caught in a time
warp viz remaining frozen since 2013!. Not surprisingly both suggested
that it may take Modi's campaign during the the last two weeks to unfreeze the
state!
Based
on such data, media speculates that the Battle for Karnataka as still open as
these extracts from a LIveMint article reflects
Wow! Just think about it ! BJP
vote share stuck at 33%, Congress at 36%! How many takers are there for this
hypothesis??
It is as if issues
such as State Government accepting separate religious status for Lingayats, the
Dalit revolt, escalating crimes against women in the country, Kannada pride
& anti-Hindi sentiments, to name a just a couple of issues, had absolutely no
impact on voting intentions. If the shoe was on the other feet, i.e. if the BJP
was a likely beneficiary of any one of these issues, our slavish media and
pollsters would have no doubt bombarded us by now their fallout, analysis after
analysis 24x7!
Both the surveys are
absolutely mum on the fact that in 2014 BJP registered their highest vote share
of 43% in the state. Yet in 2019, their polls show BJP at 33% level - experiencing
a huge negative swing of 10%. Why no explanation for such a whopping swing away
forthcoming from these pollsters?
They are also mum on
the demonstrated vote share growth of the Congress during the last 5 years due
to expansion of their social base due to their AHINDA coalition building strategy. At their
projected 36% vote share, this too is a big swing away from what the Congress
demonstrated in the last urban-rural civic elections in 2016.
But at least here,
there is some feeble explanation is attempted - anti-incumbency!
The moot question is where is the anti-incumbency if the projected vote share
of the Congress by these respective polls are at their 2013 levels? Their own vote
share data contradict their claim of anti-incumbency
Even more interesting is the data they use to back up their anti incumbency claims. Take Cvoter. Look at how the question is formulated as if they apparently using push-poll techniques- "Who are you ANGRY with?". 52% of the respondents Cvoter apparently found were not angry with anyone at least with the list they gave as options. Maybe if Cvoter had expanded their choice to include spouse, girlfriend, boyfriend, teacher, Arnab Goswami etc they would have got a better instantaneous response rate to this question!
This should also better explain
why Cvoter found the BJP unable to capitalize on anti-incumbency - simply
because none existed according to their own data. This number of 52% incidentally
finds high correlation with CSDS & Cfore surveys pro-incumbency wave.
A more significant contradiction
of their vote share projections of the Congress is when they give their caste
wise projections. The CSDS Lok Sabha 2014 data provides a good baseline of vote
share distribution on the basis of caste wherein the Congress overall registered
a vote share of 42% and BJP 43%. But look at the caste wise projections for the
Congress by Karvy in 2019 - the party has improved its share across the board
viz-a-viz 2014. If this be the case, one would have expected the Congress to
increase their vote share from 2014 and move towards the range projected by
Cfore & CSDS 46-47%. Instead we find Karvy scaling back the Congress to 36%
- their vote share registered in 2013!
Even more
interesting is this table of Cvoter published in TheQuint. Rather than provide data
on voting intention share distribution by parties, Cvoter opted to provide the
findings of a question "Who Will Form The Next Govt in Karnataka?".
Coincidentally this is also a much commonly used push poll technique that are
designed to induce such effects like "Contagion and Bandwagon".
Contagion and the
bandwagon effect are not simple phenomena. There are a range of variables at
play during an election. The bandwagon effect comes in play where voters who
think a particular political party will win the election may end up voting for
that party or candidate. Now if Cfore and CSDS 17% margin leads for the
Congress are lapped up by the electorate, even more voters may be induced to
vote the Congress due any bandwagon effect in play. So it becomes imperative
for the poll strategy of political rivals to counter such a perception by
releasing counter polls that narrows down such a wide margin by commissioning
what is known in the polling industry as hired gun polls.
There are other
two types of other effects push polls are known to be commonly designed to induce viz. tactical
voting and contagion. Tactical voting is motivated by the intention of voters
to affect which party wins the election. The move of voters to the perceived
majority view is called “contagion”.
The difference
between tactical voters and those backing a perceived winner shows how voting behavior
under a tactical consideration will be more complex than voting behavior under
a bandwagon effect. For example, in a three-party election under the
first-past-the-post method, Voter A and Voter B think their most-preferred
candidate is going to get the fewest votes. Voter A is a tactical voter; Voter
B is affected by the bandwagon effect.
Both Voter A and
Voter B will tend to vote for their second-preferred candidate if their ballots
are perceived to be crucial in their constituency, such as in the case where
their second-preferred candidate is expected to win the election by a small
margin. If voters believe their ballots are trivial in their constituency, then
Voter B will tend to vote for the candidate expected to win. Although Voter A’s
most-preferred candidate has no chance of winning, Voter A will still vote for
their most-preferred candidate because a vote for their most-preferred
candidate or for their second-preferred candidate cannot change the result.
The Karnataka Elections Lends Itself The Perfect Fertile Grounds For
Push Polls Utility.
On one hand, we have a greatly resurgent Congress with a
clear charismatic leader with a pan Karnataka appeal. Almost everyone agrees
the Congress have displayed a vice like grip on the narrative and have won the
Battle of Perception that they are not only poised to win but win with an increased
majority. Anecdotal evidence are also available in the form of crowds they are
pulling which are relatively much larger and ecstatic than their other two rivals.
Though the BJP have thrown a lot of dirt at them, nothing succeeded as of yet
in sticking on to the Congress which is often reflective of a party on the
upswing.
On the other hand,
we have a BJP whose main challenges are greatly faction ridden party,
discredited leadership, narrow social coalition base which is made narrower
through erosion of urban voters, Lingayats & Dalits. To their bad luck
instead of an opportunity to capitalize on anti incumbency they are challenged
by a pro incumbency wave in favor of the Congress. The JDS find itself organizationally
weakened by key defections and paucity of funds. They are also hit by desertion
of their secular vote base, primarily the Muslims. On the plus side, what's
going for them is consolidation of Vokkaliga votes.
It is clear to
voters that neither the BJP nor JDS on their own can dethrone the Congress.
However, both can have a small window of opportunity to share power if the
mandate throws up a hung house. JDS could be kingmaker if not king having the
luxury to choose between Congress and the BJP. For a BJP, the window opens up
full play for Shah to wholesale buy MLAs as he did in the North East & Goa
to form a BJP government.
Under the
circumstances, it is very tempting for the BJP to use Push Polls to induce
bandwagon, tactical voting & contagion effects. Political opinion polls are
not always an accurate reflection of public opinion. They could be also an
"Opinion Making" Poll as the JDS spokesperson on the IndiaToday panel
dismissed the Karvy Poll.
Don't be surprised
if a spate of polls are released on the eve of voting, projecting a "razor
sharp contest" or BJP in clear lead. Don't get carried away by media
brands like IndiaToday too.. Go by the transparency & robustness of methodology and internal
consistency of the data of polls published.
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