In the current poll season with elections due in in five states, Gujarat, too, is bracing for the ‘democratic inevitability’ later this year, amid fears about the various dormant fires — Hardik Patel, the Dalits, the OBCs, — threatening to upset the ruling BJP’s applecart for the first time since 1995. This has prompted Chief Minister Vijay Rupani and the BJP to test the prevailing popular mood through ‘voters’ opinion polls’.

But “Polls are subject to error and are for entertainment only,” says the bottom-line of the “Poll Results” of a poll conducted in the last three days for and on behalf of Rupani on his Facebook page. Clearly, some of the respondents have found it an entertaining exercise.

On his FB page, Rupani said: “Who would you vote for in the Gujarat Vidhan Sabha elections 2017-18? An online poll is in progress. You are requested to decide who you would offer your valuable vote to,” it says, while providing the link for the purpose: http://vote.pollcode.com/34579351.

And, predictably, the “selection result” showed on Monday that the BJP “won” overwhelmingly with as many as 71 per cent votes, or 163 respondents out of 229, favouring it as the party they would vote for in the Vidhan Sabha elections slated to be held sometime this year. The Congress (17 per cent) and the Aam Admi Party (1 per cent) have polled 38 and three votes, respectively, whereas others have polled five votes or 2 per cent.

Interestingly, those declaring that they would not vote for anybody or any party, the None-of-The-Above (NOTA) category, are as many as 20, or 9 per cent of the total respondents.

Another survey/ opinion poll was conducted by a private data processing firm, War Room Strategies Pvt Ltd, which polled nearly 1,500 voters in 15 Vidhan Sabha constituencies, about the demonetisation issue. Apparently conducted for the BJP, the poll’s result claims that 69 per cent of Gujaratis favoured demonetisation and 72 per cent wanted Narendra Modi to become the Prime Minister again.

Of the respondents, according to this survey/opinion poll published in local media on Monday, 45 per cent opine that demonetisation would go a long way in controlling corruption, while 36 per cent said the decision would diminish corruption and crime. Only 7 per cent thought that it had adversely impacted business and economy and another 7 per cent believed that it would increase unemployment.

Other “results” of the survey are: 62 per cent trusted the banks, 63 per cent believed that demonetisation would benefit the BJP in the coming Assembly polls, 87 per cent were happy with demonetisation, 63 per cent believed that the BJP leadership did not have any prior information about demonetisation, 72 per cent voters and 51 per cent Muslims said they would vote Modi again as PM, while 70 per cent voters and 73 per cent Muslims rejected Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi as the next PM.

comment COMMENT NOW