ADR-Daksh Survey Report for Gujarat region

The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) has conducted the largest ever survey in India with over 250,000 respondents in 530 Lok Sabha constituencies. The larger purpose of the survey is to highlight voter priorities so that elections in future are fought on voter issues, and more importantly, the manifestos of future Governments reflect voter priorities.

In Gujarat , the purpose of the survey was multi-fold:

1. To Rate MPs from the state on a Scale of 10
2. To know Top 10 pressing issues for voters in the state
3. To know voting behaviour of people
4. To know what is the role of caste, religion, crime and money power in elections

The findings of the survey:

Rating of MPs: The voters have rated the performance of MPs as Good, Average or Bad on governance issues like employment, water, electricity, roads, food, education and health.

The average performance rating of 25 MPs from Gujarat is 6.64 on a scale of 10 . Twelve of the MPs from Gujarat performed above average (Average Value of Performance = 6.67 points).

The highest scoring MP from Gujarat is TUSHAR BHAI AMAR SINH BHAI CHAUDHARY of INC from Bardoli constituency with6.92 points (Above average). On 2nd position is Jat Poonamben Veljibhai of BJP from Kutch constituency with 6.89 points and on the 3rd position Rajendra sinh Ghanshyam sinh Rana (Rajubhai Rana) of BJP from Bhavnagar constituency with 6.87 points .The lowest scoring MP from Gujarat is   Solanki Bharat bhai Madhavsinh of INC from Anand constituency with 6.18rating .

The survey has also tried to identify the gap between voters' expectations on governance issues and performance of MPs on those issues. If the expectation of voters score is more than the performance score it means voters are unhappy. And if expectation of voters score is less than the performance of MPs then voters are actually happy.

16 MPs from Gujarat have exceeded the expectation of people.

Please see the Table I (A) for individual performance rating of all the MPs from Gujarat.(While 'Performance of MP' column shows the actual rating of MPs, the 'Expectations of voters on Governance issues' column shows people's expectations from their MPs on a scale of 10) Table I (B ) is the graphical representation of 'Performance Ratings of MPs by Voters on Important Issues'.

Top 10 pressing issues for voters. To identify what are voter priorities in terms of governance issues like water, electricity, roads, food, education and health, a list of 30 items was given to voters and they were asked to rate whether a particular issue was High, Medium, or Low. This list was comprehensive as less than 5% said that there were "other issues" beyond the list.

In Gujarat , Better Employment Opportunities, Better Public Transport and Empowerment of Women are the Top 3 issues about which people are most concerned.

Please seeTable II to know the overall 10 most pressing issues for the people of Gujarat which they want their MPs to focus on, Table III for top 10 issues in rural are as of the state and Table IV to know top 10 issues in urban areas.

Table –I (A)

S. No.	Constituency	Party	Name of MP	Performance of MP	Expectations of voters on Governanceissues	Average Performance
1	Bardoli	INC	TUSHARBHAIAMARSINHBHAI CHAUDHARY	6.92	6.54	Above Average
2	1 Kutch	BJP	JatPoonambenVeljibhai	6.89	6.57	Above Average
3	8 Bhavnagar	BJP	RajendrasinhGhanshyamsinhRana(RajubhaiRana)	6.87	6.67	Above Average
4	5 Porbandar	BJP	RadadiyaVitthalbhaiHansrajbhai	6.83	6.42	Above Average
5	Panchmahal	BJP	PRABHATSINHPRATAPSINH CHAUHAN	6.82	6.53	Above Average
6	17 Dohad (ST)	INC	Dr.PrabhaKishorTaviad	6.81	6.82	Above Average
7	12 Mehsana	BJP	Patel JayshreebenKanubhai	6.77	6.57	Above Average
8	11 Gandhinagar	BJP	L.K.Advani	6.76	6.42	Above Average
9	3 Jamnagar	INC	AhirVikrambhaiArjanbhai Madam	6.74	6.48	Above Average
10	Valsad	INC	KISANBHAIVESTABHAI PATEL	6.74	6.42	Above Average
11	6 Junagadh	BJP	Solanki DinubhaiBoghabhai	6.72	6.61	Above Average
12	4 Rajkot	INC	KuvarjibhaiMohanbhaiBavalia	6.72	6.44	Above Average
13	24 Surat	BJP	ShrimatiDarshanaVikramJardosh	6.66	6.67	Below Average
14	15 Sabarkantha	BJP	Chauhan Mahendrasinh	6.65	6.53	Below Average
15	14 Banaskantha	BJP	ChaudhariHaribhaiParthibhai	6.61	6.41	Below Average
16	Ahmedabad East	BJP	HARIN PATHAK	6.59	6.63	Below Average
17	22 Baroda	BJP	BalkrishnaKhanderao Shukla  (Balu Shukla)	6.57	6.39	Below Average
18	2 Surendranagar	INC	Koli Patel SomabhaiGandalal	6.57	6.60	Below Average
19	23 Broach	BJP	MansukhbhaiDhanjibhaiVasava	6.57	6.68	Below Average
20	21 Chhota Udaipur (ST)	BJP	RathwaRamsingbhaiPatalbhai	6.56	6.47	Below Average
21	Ahmedabad West	BJP	KIRITBHAIPREMJIBHAI SOLANKI	6.56	6.52	Below Average
22	13 Patan (SC)	INC	JagdishThakor	6.44	6.61	Below Average
23	19 Kaira	INC	Dinsha Patel	6.32	6.49	Below Average
24	7 Amreli	BJP	KachhadiaNaranbhai	6.22	6.34	Below Average
25	20 Anand	INC	Solanki BharatbhaiMadhavsinh	6.09	6.18	Below Average
	Gujarat			6.64	6.52	Below Average

Table –I (B)

Overall Top 10 issues for Gujarat:

Table –II (A)

S. No.	Issues	Expectations of Issues as perceived by voters (scale-10)
1	Better employment opportunities	8.72
2	Better public transport	7.65
3	Empowerment of Women	7.60
4	Security for women	7.41
5	Trustworthiness of MP	7.34
6	Environmental issues	6.77
7	Better electric supply	6.71
8	Better roads	6.64
9	Drinking water	6.61
10	Better Law and Order / Policing	6.61

Table –II (B)

Table –II (C)

Table –III (A)

Top 10 issues in Rural areas:

S. No.	Issues	Expectations of Issues as perceived by voters (scale-10)
1	Better employment opportunities	8.61
2	Price-realization for farm products	8.58
3	Better public transport	7.58
4	Empowerment of Women	7.48
5	Trustworthiness of MP	7.33
6	Security for women	7.29
7	Better electric supply	6.76
8	Environmental issues	6.71
9	Electricity for Agriculture	6.69
10	Irrigation Programmes	6.65

Table –III (B)

Table –III (C)

Top 10 issues in Urban areas:

Table –IV (A)

Table –IV (B)

The voting behavior of people in Gujarat

The survey tried to identify the important factors that people take into account before voting for a particular Candidate. Issue like whether the Candidate matters the most or his Political Party or other issues like Caste/Religion of the Candidate, PM Candidate of the party, and Distribution of 'gifts' etc. are more important?

People in Gujarat gave most importance to the Caste/Religion of the candidate, followed by the PM candidate from the party and then the party of the candidate.What was important to note that the candidate himself was given the least importance here before voting.

Please see the Table V to find out important factors which people consider before voting for a candidate and what weightage (points) they give to each of the factors:

Table –V (A)

State	GUJARAT
Why people vote:
Party	6.69
Candidate	4.58
PM Candidate	6.70
Caste/religion	8.27
Distribution of 'gifts'	5.77
Do you think people should vote for seriously tainted candidates?
Yes	27%
No	73%
Yes/No "knowledge and opinion questions": Do you know
Do you know "Gifts" for vote is illegal	28.19%
Do you know Candidates distributing 'gifts'	60.48%
Do you know You can get candidate criminal record	55.66%
Why do people vote for those with serious criminal records:
Candidate does good work	70.21%
Powerful Candidate	21.90%
Spending in elections	17.77%
Cases not serious	79.66%
Voters don't know	65.39%
Caste or religion	72.68%

Table –V (B)

Table –V (C)

Table –V (D)

Table –V (E)

Role of caste, religion, crime and money power in elections.   The survey also tried to identify if voters are aware of the use of money and muscle power in elections .  Specifically, whether they are aware of distribution of gifts and money by candidates before polls or they have the knowledge about the criminal record of their candidates.

It was observed that nearly 61 per cent of people in Gujarat is well aware that candidates' distribute gifts and money ahead of elections. However, only 29 per cent people knew such distribution is illegal. 56 per cent people also knew that they can get an information about the criminal records of their candidates easily.

What is also observed that over 70 per cent people in Gujarat is ready to ignore the criminal record of their candidates because they feel such candidates have done "good work."Whereas around 73 per cent people vote for candidates facing criminal charges because they were of their own Caste/ Religion .