Quint-CVoter Karnataka Pre-Poll: "Only Modi’s ‘Magic’ Can Beat CM Siddaramaiah!"
Sunday, April 22, 2018
The CVoter latest
pre-poll tracker had been just published by my Twitter friend Yashwant Desmukh
in TheQuint.
As usual you will find Yashwant at his eloquent best in his analysis backed by a lot
of useful data that CVoter collected during their fieldwork.
That's said here's my
critique and alternate sense of the same dataset found under 5 major heads:
1. The Title Says It All
"Only Modi’s
‘Magic’ Can Beat CM Siddaramaiah!"
An extremely loaded
title especially the exclamation at the end of the sentence!! It says it all on
the state of the race.
Yashwant's opening
paragraph is even more illuminating:
"While much
anger has been directed at the sitting MLAs and the state government, the chief
minister continues to enjoy popularity. On the other hand, even with a popular
CM candidate, the BJP is unable to gain
from the anti-incumbency sentiment, mostly because of extreme infighting
within the rank and file of the party."
So what does these extracts
all combined translate into? It only means that though CVoter found that the Congress
was facing a measure of anti-incumbency, the BJP is unable to capitalize from
it. In simple words - Congress is ahead,
BJP behind! Not Yogi, not Shah, not Yedduruppa, not the much hyped booth
level organisation of the BJP nor their social media army. Nothing apparently has
worked so far. Nothing is expected to work in future also. BJP is reduced to betting on
Modi as their last act of desperation!
The Battle for
Karnataka according to Yashwant is framed basically as a Presidential one - "Only Modi can beat Siddaramiah"
Here lies the key contradiction in Yashwant's entire analysis. Once it is posited
as a battle between two personalities then all other factors such as
anti-incumbency becomes completely redundant or secondary. In any case, all data pre-polls including
CVoter published so far refute the anti-incumbency factor. For the Congress to
face "angry anti-incumbency
sentiment", their vote share should technically go below their 36% vote
share of 2013 which isn't the case!
Modi's image has
taken quite a beating nationally during the past few months. It is only logical
to conclude that if Modi has to work his "magic" then surely it can't
be as potent as what he demonstrated in the state in 2014. It is possible that
some residual impact of the Modi Wave of 2014 remains and the BJP hopes it is
large enough for them to stop the Congress from forming the next government.
CVoter however finds that
head to head, Modi still commands a relative edge in popularity ratings over
Siddaramiah in the state. Accepting the findings as it were, it is pertinent to ask how
practical it is to expect that this by itself could lift BJP fortunes in the
state which has a proud history of sharply discerning their political
preferences between state and centre elections? In the 1984 Lok Sabha elections,
Rajiv Gandhi clean swept Karnataka. A few months later, RamaKrishna Hedge humiliatingly
defeated the Congress for the Assembly. What stops history from repeating
itself? Besides in 2013, Modi extensively campaigned during Karnataka Assembly elections wherein BJP got routed! Even during the "Modi Wave", the Congress in Karnataka increased their vote share by 5% and trailed hardly 1%!
2. Is Modi a BJP's Trump Or A Just A Convenient Strategic Distraction To Protect Their Achilles Heel - State Leadership?
These are an
extremely significant set of numbers. Nearly 47% of the respondents rate
Siddaramiah as better than past CMs as a governance performer.
One of the key
handicaps of the BJP as Yashwant highlighted in his opening paragraph was the
infighting among their leaders. He observed further that "the House of Congress looks undivided and has accepted the
popular face of Siddaramaiah’s leadership in the run-up to the polls".
The real problem for
the BJP is that Yeddurrupa is not an undisputed leader even within his own
party unlike Siddaramiah within the Congress party. Even today, comes the news
that the BJP had experienced a significant split with their backward class
leader's KS Eshwarappa Rayanna Brigade splitting away from the party. What
makes it worse for the BJP is its past track record in government. Five years
of office saw the state have 3 CMs, one CM and many ministers jailed, and the
party break up into 3 splinters.
Within this context,
it becomes a strategic campaign imperative for BJP to project the Battle for
Karnataka as one between Modi and Siddaramiah in order to underplay, if not relegate to the background, the deep rooted
factionalism within the party and their past poor record of providing stable
governance.
But back to the
table again. Nearly 47% of respondents rate Siddaramiah as better than all past
CMs. The question is, if this is so, why should Karnataka voters be expected to
punish the Congress as they have provided better governance than all past BJP CMs
- Yedduruppa, Sadananda Gowda and Jagadish Shettar?? Or for that matter, better than Kumaraswamy of JDS or his father Dev Gowda?
The Congress has played ball till now treating the contest as mainly a Presidential one. This has helped Siddaramiah immensely to grow in stature being pitted with Modi while the state BJP leaders found themselves increasingly reduced to pygmies.
What if the Congress now
do an about turn in their campaign strategy and position the battle for state
as a purely local centric one? All they have to do is simply remind people that even
if they prefer Modi, he would be not there to govern the state. That in the
advent of BJP coming to power, people of the state need to deal once again with
the likes of Yedduruppa, Sadananda Gowda, Jagadish Shettar, Eshwarappa and of
course the infamous Bellary Brothers! That in the other alternate scenario of
BJP and JDS forming a coalition government, the last one proved short lived,
plunging the state into politically instability and leading to re-elections
again. Such a radical strategic U-turn in the Congress campaign would prove totally
disruptive and neutralize the Modi Factor completely!
To be noted also, a 47% approval rating
for Siddaramiah within the state is coincidentally the vote share projections
of Cfore & CSDS pre-polls for the Congress!!
3. In a Presidential Contest Anti-Incumbency is A Redundant Factor
More than half the
respondents were found by CVoter as UNDECIDED.
The moot question is if anti-incumbency is so widespread and intense enough to
be a vote decider as CVoter makes it out to be, why are more than half the sample undecided or fight shy to
express their feelings more openly? Could an alternate explanation to low anti incumbency against the central government simply be fear of Modi & BJP that prompted many respondents not to reveal their
true level of feelings towards the Central Government?
It is also
significant that Cfore which used face to face interview methods did not
confront so much undecided numbers regarding incumbency & anti-incumbency. They
instead found a pro-incumbency wave. So did CSDS with their Congress 17% margin lead projection. CVoter on the other hand is known to use
computerised mobile telephonic interviews that make it difficult to ask follow
up questions to those undecided category that makes it difficult predict their
likely mood of the undecided category.
Interestingly, in
the US, a research study showed that the 2006, 2008, 2010 Wave Elections to the US State
Houses of Congress, saw 85% of incumbents being re-elected even when opinion
polls reflected a strong anti-incumbency mood during the same period. (Source:
Campaigns from Ground Up: State House Elections in a National Context pg 143). So
in a Presidential race, anti-incumbency rarely emerges a major factor with
personality mostly holding the key.
5. CVoter Plays It Safe! Why?
What I found most appealing
about this CVoter pre-poll is that Yashwant did away seat projections totally. There is no magical
sure shot statistical formula in converting votes into seats particularly under
the Indian first-past-the-post multi-party system though media houses misleading
hype seat share projections as the center piece of their shows. Any psephologist
will tell you in private though they are literally forced to make a great show in
announcing their seat share projections on TV screens by the media that sponsors
them. It is better to do away with the farce then to keep on enacting them to gullible audiences
who may think these seat share projections are made on some magical statistical
formula. At the most seat shares are informed guesses.
That said, why were
vote share projections not provided? What is the purpose of a pre-poll without vote share projections? Instead what we find is that CVoter, using
perceptions of respondents who would form the next government as an apparent
substitute which many readers may inadvertently misconstrue for vote share
projections. Why the hesitancy to stick their necks out?
If these numbers howeveris to be
treated as vote share projections, this data would contradict CVoter's findings of the Congress experiencing anti-incumbency since their current projected vote
share remains more or less at their 2013 level. Similarly, the 2014 Lok Sabha polls witnessed
the BJP registering their highest vote share of 43% due to the "Modi
Wave". Currently projected at 34.5%, it appears the "Modi Wave"
has mostly dissipated and its residual impact is extremely feeble that
immediately raises the question why all the hullabaloo being drummed up on
back of claims that Modi is yet to work his "magic". In any case, such claims that Modi has not started his campaign are
simply gross misinformation. He visited the
state at least thrice including rallies in Bangalore and Mysore last month which hardly
caused a ripple in impact!
It is also perplexing
why CVoter refrained from giving any desegregated data of respondents expecting
a coalition government on the basis of breakdown on their predictive voter
intentions. This category could include Congress, BJP & JDS potential
voters who collectively think that despite their different voting intentions, a
hung house is the most likely outcome. It is also possible that that those in
this category need not necessarily support the respective party who they think will form
the government. A person for example intends to vote Congress may think the result would be a coalition government. Then they could be differences in perception of coalition. Some may think it maybe a BJP-JDS one, while others a Congress-JDS one. So this table is largely meaningless.
Many questions
remains?
- what's the purpose
of this meaningless table?
- why no data at all on
projected voter intentions?
- why no
desegregated data provided on those who feel the next government would be a
coalition government
- how come undecided
category is not part of this table when it is an inclusive part of other
tables?
Come on Yashwant, we
deserve some answers!
Note: My critique
apart, I suggest everyone interested in pre-polls and particularly those related to
the forthcoming Karnataka Assembly elections to read Yashwant's original full post
published in TheQuint. Please visit HERE
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