SURVEY REPORT ON PULSE OF THE ELECTORATE IN ALWAR DISTRICT (Rajasthan State) (Dates of Survey: 07/09/2013 to 11/09/2013) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9B, Samrat Complex, Opp: AG’s Office, Saifabad, HYDERABAD- 500 004. [email protected] 1 | P a g e METHODOLOGY A Public Opinion was conducted to gauge the implementation of welfare schemes, performance of government & political preferences and felt needs of the people in Alwar district of Rajasthan from 07/09/2013 to 11/09/2013 11 Assembly constituencies in the Alwar district were chosen for survey. Survey was conducted on the pulse of electorate to gauge the political preferences of the people in Alwar district consisting of 11 Assembly segments namely Alwar Rural(SC), Alwar Urban, Thanagazi, Tijara, Ramgarh, Rajgarh- Laxmangarh(ST), Mundawar, Kishangarh Bas, Kathumar(SC), Bansur, and Behror was conducted. A structured questionnaire and secret voting through ballot was used to collect the data. Through this questionnaire, totally 13,200 respondents were interviewed. The sample procedure followed for this study was that from each Assembly constituency, 10 polling booths were selected through the method of Probability proportional to size (PPS) for the survey. Out of 2342 Polling Stations, 132 are chosen for survey based on the method of Probability Proportional to Size (PPS) Among the selected polling booths from each assembly segment respondents were indentified through random sampling. Totally, 4 days field work was carried in the Assembly segment. 100 samples collected from each polling station. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9B, Samrat Complex, Opp: AG’s Office, Saifabad, HYDERABAD- 500 004. [email protected] 2 | P a g e Prof. Ashutosh Kumar of the Political Science Department of Pubjab University chaired the workshop conducted for field investigators at Jaipur. Prof. Vibhutii Singh Shekhawat, Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, MNIT, Jaipur , coordinated the survey work with field investigators. Data Entry work coordinated and supervised by Ms. Pratima Umar, M.Phil., Economics, CESP/SSS/JNU Data analysis and report prepared by Mr. Sajjan Kumar, Research Scholar, CPS, JNU and Mr. Bathula Suresh Babu, Research Scholar, School of Economics, Hyderabad Central University. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9B, Samrat Complex, Opp: AG’s Office, Saifabad, HYDERABAD- 500 004. [email protected] 3 | P a g e SAMPLE PROFILE Total Sample – 13,200 GENDER AGE Male - 59.2% First Voter -3.7% Female – 40.8% 18-25 years – 21.0% 26-35 years – 32.9% 36-45 years – 23.8% 46-60 years – 13.3% 60 Above - 5.3% PLACE OCCUPATION Village - 64.2% Govt. Employee - 4.4% Small Town - 19.4% Daily Wage Labour - 14.6% Big Town - 14.0% Private Employee - 10.6% District Head Quarter - 1.3% Farmer - 19.4% Assembly Head Quarter – 1.0% Business - 13.6% Others - 37.4% EDUCATION CASTE Below 10 th Class – 38.2% General - 24.6% Above 10 th Class – 26.2% OBC - 30.4% Degree - 9.5% SC - 18.3% Post Graduate - 5.0% ST - 12.4% Professional - 3.3% Minority – 13.5% Uneducated - 17.6% Others - 0.9% INCOME Below 5,000/- - 36.1% Above 5,000/- - 33.2% Above 10, 000/- - 13.9% Above 15,000/- - 5.0% Above 20,000/- - 5.5% Above 25,000/- - 2.6% Above 30,000/- - 0.9% Above 50,000/- - 1.8% Above 1 Lakh - - 0.8% -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9B, Samrat Complex, Opp: AG’s Office, Saifabad, HYDERABAD- 500 004. [email protected] 4 | P a g e EXECUTIVE SUMMARY It’s clearly going the way of Bharatiya Janata Party. Going by the extensive survey done in all the 11 Assembly constituencies in Alwar district of Rajasthan, a clear disenchantment towards the Congress and an inclination to look for the BJP is more than evident on almost all parameters that matter in an election. With little time left for the ensuing polls and the gap between the BJP and Congress too wide, there seems to be hardly any scope for the Congress to stop the saffron party in its tracks. Apart from unhappiness over the functioning of the State Government, price rise, for which the UPA government at the Centre is being singularly blamed, are fuelling the public mood against the Congress and more or less decisively in favour of BJP. Of the 11 segments in the district, the Congress has a chance only in two – Bansur and Kishangarh Bas – while the remaining nine are expected to go the BJP way. Likewise, it will be difficult for the Congress to retain the Parliamentary seats as well. A variety of factors appear to be working against the Congress. Chief among them are as follows: a) Over 55% of the respondents said they are not benefitting from any government scheme. b) Price Rise has been identified as the biggest problem by the voters and is bound to influence the mind of the voters at the time of exercising their franchise. c) On most parameters – electricity supply, employment, roads and general development, voters do not seem to feel that anything substantial or worthwhile has been done in the last 5 years in Congress regime. d) Perhaps reflecting this mood, as many as 56% of the respondents felt development was better during the previous BJP regime. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9B, Samrat Complex, Opp: AG’s Office, Saifabad, HYDERABAD- 500 004. [email protected] 5 | P a g e e) Half the respondents – 50% -- are either fully or partly dissatisfied with the performance of the sitting MLAs & MPs with exactly same percentage of people saying that they cannot win again. f) A significant 58 % of the respondents felt the Ashok Gehlot government should not be given a chance again. Not surprisingly, almost an equal number (57.6) preferred Vasundhara Raje as the Chief Minister vis-à-vis Gehlot who secured the nod of only 32%. g) Reflecting a similar trend, almost 60% of those surveyed predicted victory for BJP in the coming elections with only 33% favouring the Congress. h) Further the respondents were of the opinion that the conventional trend of “anti- incumbency” will be repeated this time also. i) In view of giving another chance to Congress, it is identified that both the male and female categories are not agreeable to have Congress again in power Overall, it looks that Rajasthan voters will stick to the time-tested formula of governments being changed every five years. In fact, a majority of the voters (57%) felt it would be the same this time too. Unhappiness with both the State and Central governments apart, the overwhelming preference for Narendra Modi for the prime ministership (59%) as against only 18% who opted for Rahul Gandhi, could also help the BJP swing the election in its favour. The Secret through ballot reveals that BJP has got the 61.2 percentage followed by Congress with 36.1, BSP 0.8 and other 1.9 percentages respectively Gender-wise Party preference Gender CONGRESS BJP BSP OTHERS Male 35.5 61.5 0.8 2.2 Female 37.0 60.7 0.9 1.3 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9B, Samrat Complex, Opp: AG’s Office, Saifabad, HYDERABAD- 500 004. [email protected] 6 | P a g e SECRET BALLOT PAPER COUNTING – PARTY-WISE VOTES (%) TALLY IN ALWAR DISTRICT S. No. Name of the Assembly Segment Congress BJP BSP Others 1 ALWAR (RURAL) 32.6 58.5 4.7 4.1 2 ALWAR (URBAN) 37.5 56.3 0.8 5.4 3 THANAGAZI 36.1 57.6 1.7 4.6 4 TIJARA 28.6 70.5 0.8 0.0 5 RAMGARH 38.9 61.1 0.0 0.0 6 RAJGARH - LAXMANGARH 33.3 66.1 0.6 0.0 7 MUNDAWAR 18.5 81.5 0.0 0.0 8 KISHANGARH BAS 62.1 35.5 0.5 2.0 9 KATHUMAR 24.7 75.3 0.0 0.0 10 BANSAR 52.7 43.2 0.0 4.1 11 BAHROD 44.9 55.1 0.0 0.0 Overall in the district 36.1 61.2 0.8 1.9 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9B, Samrat Complex, Opp: AG’s Office, Saifabad, HYDERABAD- 500 004. [email protected] 7 | P a g e FINDINGS Q1. Are you or your family a beneficiary of any Government scheme? Yes - 40.6% No - 55.0% Not Responded - 4.4% -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9B, Samrat Complex, Opp: AG’s Office, Saifabad, HYDERABAD- 500 004. [email protected] 8 | P a g e Assembly Constituency wise: Assembly Constituency Yes No Not Responded Tijara 19.6% 78.8% 1.7% Kishangarh Bas 22.2% 71.1% 6.7% Mundawar 23.7% 73.7% 2.7% Behror 47.0% 45.8% 7.1% Bansur 36.6% 54.7% 8.7% Thanagazi 74.2% 21.4% 4.4% Alwar Rural (SC) 60.8% 29.8% 9.4% Alwar Urban 82.0% 15.9% 2.0% Ramgarh 40.5% 57.6% 1.9% Rajgarh-Laxmangarh(ST) 2.9% 92.6% 4.5% Kathumar(SC) 35.6% 62.3% 2.1% -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9B, Samrat Complex, Opp: AG’s Office, Saifabad, HYDERABAD- 500 004. [email protected] 9 | P a g e Q2. If yes, which are the schemes you are availing? 1st Scheme: S. No Schemes Percent 1 Housing 5.6 2 Pensions 10.4 3 Scholarships 0.6 4 Health 3.2 5 Subsidy Loans from Government 0.7 6 others 6.7 7 Not Responded 72.7 2nd Scheme: S. No Schemes Percent 1 Housing 0.8 2 Pensions 3.4 3 Scholarships 1.3 4 Health 6.9 5 Subsidy Loans from Government 0.4 6 others 3.7 7 Not Responded 83.6 3rd Scheme: S. No Schemes Percent 1 Housing 0.8 2 Pensions 0.3 3 Scholarships 0.3 4 Health 0.7 5 Subsidy Loans from Government 0.1 6 others 0.7 7 Not Responded 97.0 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9B, Samrat Complex, Opp: AG’s Office, Saifabad, HYDERABAD- 500 004.