*NEW DELHI: Thousands of candidates, hundreds of parties, endlesscombinations of possible coalitions – spare a thought for India’spollsters, tasked with making sense of the country’s fiendishly complicatedpolitics ahead of a general election due by May.*
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by Prime Minister Narendra Modiwon a surprise majority in 2014. Until last year, many predicted a similarresult. But amid rising anger over unemployment and a fall in ruralincomes, the BJP lost key state elections in December, making this contestmore closely fought than first expected.
That means surveys conducted on behalf of newspapers and TV channels willbe closely scrutinised. Some of India’s top pollsters however, told Reuterscurrent surveys could be wide of the mark until the parties finalisealliances, which could be as late as April – and even then, there arechallenges.
“In India there are certain relationships between caste, religion andallegiance,” said VK Bajaj, chief executive of Today’s Chanakya, the onlypolling firm to predict the BJP would win an outright majority in 2014. “Wehave to do checks and counter-checks when collecting our samples.”
Opinion polls grew in popularity in India in the 1990s, after economicliberalisation saw a boom in privately-owned newspapers and TV channels,all demanding their own surveys.
In 1998 and 1999, the polls closely predicted the share of seats for thewinning BJP-led coalition, according to data collected by Praveen Rai, ananalyst who has tracked opinion polls in India for more than 15 years atthe Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, which also runs its ownsurveys.
But in the last three elections, polls have been significantly wide of themark. In 2004 and 2009 the victorious Congress alliance was completelyunderestimated, while in 2014 only Bajaj’s firm predicted the BJP would winan outright majority.
Elections in India have become “increasingly multi-varied”, Rai said, withthe emergence of regional parties complicating pollsters’ efforts.
Many polls are conducted face-to-face, and collecting representativesamples can be hard in a country that still has several armed separatistmovements and tribal communities unused to opinion polling.
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When CNX, one of India’s largest polling companies, conducts fieldwork inrural Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand – two states with large tribal populations– it often finds many are unfamiliar with the concept of opinion polls.
“In areas where people are not so educated it is difficult for them tounderstand,” said Bhawesh Jha, CNX’s founder.
Elsewhere, a lack of trust in why polls are conducted and how the data isused means respondents are also less truthful than other countries,pollsters said.
“Dubious opinion polls conducted by some media houses to sway the electionsfor political parties … has definitely created a bad name for the pollingindustry in India,” Rai said.
India lacks strong data protections laws like those in North America andEurope, and many people still believe their details will be passed on topolitical parties, Rai and Jha said, meaning answers were often those theythink the pollster wants to hear.
“We have to convince people we are not going to reveal their identity,” Jhasaid.
