As Gujarat goes to polls tomorrow, a high voltage campaign by both the parties comes to an end. While everyone expected the BJP to sail through the polls, given the fact that Gujarat is PM Modi’s home state and the BJP has ruled it for the past 22 years. But opinion polls show a different story. BJP’s mission 150 looks far-fetched. Some surveys like the CSDS suggest that BJP would struggle to form the government on its own and has predicted the Congress to get over 80 seats.
So, are the winds of change really blowing in Gujarat or is the Opinion Polls by leading Media agencies completely losing the pulse of the ground realities?
Before every election, the Lutyen’s media’s darling Shri Rahul Gandhi is relaunched. Phrases like “Congress is showing signs of revival”, “this is a different Rahul Gandhi”, “No matter what the result, Rahul Gandhi’s emerged from the shadows” and what not. Rahul Gandhi as expected had been relaunched again by the media and marketed in such a way that he could simply do no wrong. The absurdity of the opinion poll conducted by Lokniti-CSDS is beyond imagination. The poll predicts BJP to get 95 seats and the Congress to get 82 seats. The biggest takeaway from this sham of a survey was that it predicted both the parties to get an equal vote share of 43%. The same survey in August predicted the Congress’s vote share to be a paltry 29%. A rise of 14% vote share within 3 months is near impossible. Such a tectonic shift in the ground realities would have been visible. Being a Gujarati, born and raised in Ahmedabad there are absolutely no indicators that point to the fact that the support for the Grand Old Party has increased by 3 folds.
But the funniest part of the survey was when the head of CSDS, Sanjay Kumar, proclaimed himself as the Tendulkar of opinion polls. Yes, the same CSDS who predicted the SP-INC combine to get a sweeping majority in UP. In Uttarakhand too, it showed the Congress gaining ground and pegged the BJP’s vote share at 39%. The BJP ended up crushing the INC with a vote share of 49%. This is just too far away from the margin of error. Unsurprisingly, the same survey showed a neck and neck battle between BJP and INC in 2007 Gujarat polls. Sachin Tendulkar won’t like this record for sure.
The biggest fool in all of this is Yogendra Yadav. He has suffered a real jolt since leaving AAP and the fact that his Swaraj Abhiyan finding hardly any takers. The moment the CSDS survey was announced, he was even more excited than Rahul Gandhi. He predicted “a political earthquake” to take place in Gujarat, and the BJP will be handed “a big defeat” something even the most loyal supporter of Congress doesn’t expect to happen and guess who chose to retweet and lend her support to Yogendra Yadav? None other than Sagarika Ghose. The same deadly duo combined to predict the Gujarat polls back in 2007. The fantastic duo not only managed to get the opinion poll wrong, they even messed up the exit polls and predicted a victory for the INC. It’s absolutely mind-boggling the amount of screen time awarded to a failed psephologist and politician like Yogendra Yadav whenever an election is near.
It doesn’t take a noted psephologist to know that in Gujarat, a vote against the BJP is a betrayal to their Narendra bhai. Yes, the disenchantment with the BJP might be brewing and given that the fact that the party has been in power for 22 years it’s understandable. Hardly any Gujarati will be voting for the BJP come the polling day. Most of the BJP voters will be voting for their PM Modi and not CM Rupani. While PM Modi might have not given (and rightly so) any undue favors to the state since moving to 7 Lok Kalyan Marg, he still manages to capture the imagination of 5 crore Gujaratis. It’s no secret that the party has slipped up in the state after the departure of Narendra Modi but even during arguably its weakest position in the state under the tenure of Anandniben Patel during the 2015 municipal elections, fresh from the Patidar agitation, the BJP won all the 6 Municipal corporations and consolidated it’s hold in nagarpalikas. The party lost big in Panchayat elections and the BJP promptly replaced Anandniben Patel. The BJP enjoys a huge voter base in urban bodies who no matter what refuses to shift away from the BJP. Take the example of Jodhpur ward in Vejalpur, Ahmedabad. The then Mayor of Ahmedabad Meenaxiben Patel represented the ward and in 2015 was up for re-election. The condition of the ward was so horrible, with almost every other road dug up and the work only being half completed, she still surprising won from Jodhpur mainly to the fact that even a Municipal election is perceived as a referendum on PM Modi and his policies by Gujaratis.
The Times Now-VMR survey did restore some sense by predicting 105 seats for the BJP and 74 for the Congress but it also seems to be a little off the mark. However, some of the panelists on Times Now threatened to redefine the word stupidity. One of the panelists said this election, despite it being the Prime Minister’s home state is not about the Prime Minister. He said that Hardik Patel’s rallies have attracted larger crowds than PM Modi’s rallies and he is now the state’s tallest leader. He also went on to predict over 100 seats for the Congress. Even Shehzad Poonwaala, member of the Congress and a relative of Robert Vadra predicted that the best-case scenario would be 80 seats for the Congress. It seems the so-called unbiased journalists want Congress to win more than the party itself. When Yogendra Yadav was brought in to give his opinion on the Times Now’s poll, he was almost in tears. He would have cried hard after the Times Now’s poll. He recited his ages old argument that opinion polls tend to overestimate the ruling party and was at one point literally pleading that the Congress would win. It was poor of Rahul Shivshankar to not offer Yogendra Yadav a handkerchief.
Coming to India Today, it has sent both Rajdeep Sardesai and Rahul Kanwal to cover the election. One could be mistaken for assuming them to be Congress spokespersons if they followed their Social Media activity. Rahul Kanwal especially is trying hard to turn the tables in favor of the Congress and some of his posts on Facebook are absolutely absurd.
Now @OfficeOfRG lands in Anand to loud applause. #GujaratElection2017 Crowd cheers Congress is coming. pic.twitter.com/Brg8ru2eDh
— Rahul Kanwal (@rahulkanwal) December 8, 2017
He tried to give brownie points to the Congress in the aftermath of Mani Shankar Aiyar’s “neech” remark on the PM. He praised Rahul Gandhi for god knows what in handling this situation. His stupidity reached a new low when he claimed PM Modi’s rallies were lackluster and the crowd looked disinterested while Rahul’s rallies were far better. If PM Modi’s Surat rally is anything to go by, this is hardly the case and one wonders if Rahul’s namesake is really covering Gujarat or some other state. Rajdeep being Rajdeep can be seen instigating citizens to rant against PM Modi by constantly needling them on points like GST and Demonetisation. Yes, these so-called unbiased journalists end up ‘predicting’ the polls and we are supposed to believe them.
The Opinion Polls have overestimated the Hardik Patel factor despite the fact that he failed miserably in the 2015 Municipal elections.
His partners in crime Jignesh Mewani and Alpesh Thakor have been restricted to their respective constituencies by the BJP who fielded strong candidates against them, who despite choosing relatively safe seats and enjoying the support of both the INC and AAP are on a sticky wicket in their constituencies.
People have actually stopped them from visiting their villages and areas and have forced them to return. The Congress is banking on this troika to help defeat the Modi-Shah duo in their backyard. One doesn’t need to wait till December 18 to know the fate of this troika and the Congress.
Underestimating the Modi-Shah duo in their own backyard is the biggest mistake anyone can make. The BJP’s organizational strength in the state cannot be matched. To think that someone like RaGa or Hardik would understand the state better than the Modi-Shah duo is foolhardy. Election after election, opinion polls and exit polls have been proven wrong by the duo and back in their home state, expect them and the voters to show no mercy on the Congress.
It seems the Lutyen’s media has completely missed the mark yet again and if on December 18, the opinion polls are proven wrong, the reputation of these media houses would be at an all-time low. It seems they are covering a different state altogether. They have completely missed the pulse yet again. They have reduced the opinion polls to further their propaganda in a desperate attempt to put INC back on India’s political map.
