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.ConstituencyPartyName of MPPerformance of MPExpectations of voters on GovernanceissuesAverage Performance
1BardoliINCTUSHARBHAIAMARSINHBHAI CHAUDHARY6.926.54Above Average
21 KutchBJPJatPoonambenVeljibhai6.896.57Above Average
38 BhavnagarBJPRajendrasinhGhanshyamsinhRana(RajubhaiRana)6.876.67Above Average
45 PorbandarBJPRadadiyaVitthalbhaiHansrajbhai6.836.42Above Average
5PanchmahalBJPPRABHATSINHPRATAPSINH CHAUHAN6.826.53Above Average
617 Dohad (ST)INCDr.PrabhaKishorTaviad6.816.82Above Average
712 MehsanaBJPPatel JayshreebenKanubhai6.776.57Above Average
811 GandhinagarBJPL.K.Advani6.766.42Above Average
93 JamnagarINCAhirVikrambhaiArjanbhai Madam6.746.48Above Average
10ValsadINCKISANBHAIVESTABHAI PATEL6.746.42Above Average
116 JunagadhBJPSolanki DinubhaiBoghabhai6.726.61Above Average
124 RajkotINCKuvarjibhaiMohanbhaiBavalia6.726.44Above Average
1324 SuratBJPShrimatiDarshanaVikramJardosh6.666.67Below Average
1415 SabarkanthaBJPChauhan Mahendrasinh6.656.53Below Average
1514 BanaskanthaBJPChaudhariHaribhaiParthibhai6.616.41Below Average
16Ahmedabad EastBJPHARIN PATHAK6.596.63Below Average
1722 BarodaBJPBalkrishnaKhanderao Shukla  (Balu Shukla)6.576.39Below Average
182 SurendranagarINCKoli Patel SomabhaiGandalal6.576.60Below Average
1923 BroachBJPMansukhbhaiDhanjibhaiVasava6.576.68Below Average
2021 Chhota Udaipur (ST)BJPRathwaRamsingbhaiPatalbhai6.566.47Below Average
21Ahmedabad WestBJPKIRITBHAIPREMJIBHAI SOLANKI6.566.52Below Average
2213 Patan (SC)INCJagdishThakor6.446.61Below Average
2319 KairaINCDinsha Patel6.326.49Below Average
247 AmreliBJPKachhadiaNaranbhai6.226.34Below Average
2520 AnandINCSolanki BharatbhaiMadhavsinh6.096.18Below Average
 Gujarat  6.646.52Below Average

Table –I (B)

Performance-Ratings-of-MPs-by-Voters-on-Important-Issues-gujrat

Overall Top 10 issues for Gujarat:

Table –II (A)

S. No.IssuesExpectations of Issues as perceived by voters (scale-10)
1Better employment opportunities8.72
2Better public transport7.65
3Empowerment of Women7.60
4Security for women7.41
5Trustworthiness of MP7.34
6Environmental issues6.77
7Better electric supply6.71
8Better roads6.64
9Drinking water6.61
10Better Law and Order / Policing6.61

Table –II (B)

Expectations-of-Issues-as-perceived-by-voters-scale-10-gujrat

Table –II (C)

Next-5-Issues-gujrat

Table –III (A)

Top 10 issues in Rural areas:

S. No.IssuesExpectations of Issues as perceived by voters (scale-10)
1Better employment opportunities8.61
2Price-realization for farm products8.58
3Better public transport7.58
4Empowerment of Women7.48
5Trustworthiness of MP7.33
6Security for women7.29
7Better electric supply6.76
8Environmental issues6.71
9Electricity for Agriculture6.69
10Irrigation Programmes6.65

Table –III (B)

Expectations-of-Issues-as-perceived-by-voters-scale-10-rural-gujrat

Table –III (C)

Next-5-Issues-rural-gujrat

Top 10 issues in Urban areas:

Table –IV (A)

Expectations-of-Issues-as-perceived-by-voters-scale-10-urban-gujrat

Table –IV (B)

Next-5-Issues-urban-gujrat

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)

StateGUJARAT
  
Why people vote: 
Party6.69
Candidate4.58
PM Candidate6.70
Caste/religion8.27
Distribution of 'gifts'5.77
  
Do you think people should vote for seriously tainted candidates? 
Yes27%
No73%
  
Yes/No "knowledge and opinion questions": Do you know 
Do you know "Gifts" for vote is illegal28.19%
Do you know Candidates distributing 'gifts'60.48%
Do you know You can get candidate criminal record55.66%
Why do people vote for those with serious criminal records: 
Candidate does good work70.21%
Powerful Candidate21.90%
Spending in elections17.77%
Cases not serious79.66%
Voters don't know65.39%
Caste or religion72.68%
  

Table –V (B)

Why-People-Vote-gujrat

Table –V (C)

Knowledge-and-Opinion-gujrat

Table –V (D)

Why-do-people-vote-for-Criminal-Candidates-gujrat

Table –V (E)

Should-People-vote-for-Criminal-Candidates-gujrat

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 .

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