Pre Poll Survery
As per http://www.ibnlive.com/article.php?id=8219§ion_id=4&pagenum=0
It is anybody’s game in the crucial Tamil Nadu elections this time. A CNN-IBN-Hindu pre-poll survey predicts that it is going to be a very close race between the alliances of the two Dravidian outfits in the 234-member strong Tamil Nadu Assembly.
It has always been a neck-to-neck fight for votes between the two main Dravidian parties in Tamil Nadu. The DMK won the elections in 1996 and the AIADMK in 2001. In 2006, it is too close a contest to call.
Preferred Chief Minister
42% Jayalalitha
39% Karunanidhi
5% Vijaykant
1% S.Ramdos
1% M.K Stalin
Rest Others and No Opinion
The CNN-IBN-Hindu pre-poll survey has come up with bagful of surprises as far as public mood in the Dravidian heartland is concerned.
According to the survey, the AIADMK will get a 46 per cent share of the votes and the DMK 44 per cent. Actor-politician Vijaykanth’s party, the DMDK, is projected to get 5 per cent of the votes. Such a close fight means that later the field could be open for small groups during government formation.
Even poll pundits won’t risk predicting the exact number of seats the AIADMK and the DMK will win, but both parties might get almost an equal number of seats.
Surprisingly, the survey found that a great majority of people are happy with the AIADMK-led government’s functioning though anti-incumbency will be a factor in the elections. As many as 67 per cent respondents felt satisfied with the government. Only 24 per cent felt dissatisfied.
But the real surprise is the competition between key personalities. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK chief J Jayalalitha outperforms DMK chief and former chief minister M. Karunanidhi on the counts of governance, concern for poor, development and ironically controlling corruption as well.
Jayalalitha, despite the incumbency factor, is still the most preferred person for the chief minister’s post. According to the survey, 42 per cent respondents would like Jayalalitha to be the next chief minister. As many as 39 per cent respondents favoured M Karunanidhi for the post. Vijaykanth came a distant third in the preference list.
Vijaykanth, whose party will be the third largest force in the elections, could be the dark horse. He has managed to dent the vote base of almost all parties. According to the survey, 49 per cent of his support comes from the DMK base and 25 from AIADMK base.
And according to The same Hindu http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2004/03/31/stories/2004033100040800.htm
THE RESULTS of the first comprehensive pre-poll survey, done by NDTV, Indian Express and AC Nielsen, reiterate the expected — that the National Democratic Alliance will romp home comfortably. The news for the Congress(I) could not have been worse — the poll puts the party's tally in the next Lok Sabha at less than 100; a prediction that has been made by a section of the media and political pundits.
But the poll — conducted between March 5 and 18, with the sample size of a whopping 45,478 and spread over 207 of the 543 Lok Sabha constituencies in 18 States — gives the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance 287-307 seats. Even if this is a near-accurate reflection of the public sentiment, then a BJP-led alliance is within sniffing distance of power in Delhi once again. Clearly, a good monsoon and an economically resurgent India are all set to do the trick for the NDA, along with reasonably good governance, though blotted by the communal carnage in Gujarat in 2002. Aiding the NDA, as it were, is an emaciated Congress(I) that has failed to sew up alliances in States that matter the most, particularly Uttar Pradesh. Small wonder then that the NDA brass did not want to risk an indifferent or truant monsoon this year and hence the care to complete the electoral exercise before the first monsoon cloud could darken or dodge Indian skies.
In both occasions, the elections were in May and the Survery was done in March-April
More from the 2004 Survey
Thus, the BJP has every reason to be smiling, as it readies to occupy once again the corridors of power in Delhi, having done the smart thing in getting its alliance arithmetic right. This it has done in almost all States except perhaps Tamil Nadu where, going by the Indian Express-NDTV-AC Nielsen survey, the tie-up with the AIADMK, which brought down the Vajpayee Government in 1999, will cost it dear. According to the poll, the BJP-AIADMK coalition will get of the 40 seats (39 in Tamil Nadu plus one in Pondicherry) a mere five seats with the DMK-led Democratic Progressive Front bagging 35.
The drifting away from the BJP of the old allies — the DMK, the MDMK and the PMK — could, going by the survey, hit the BJP, which appears to have snuggled up to the AIADMK, influenced by that party's huge victory in the 2001 Assembly elections. But three years is a long time and the anti-incumbency factor may well be at work.
If, indeed, the BJP has blundered in Tamil Nadu, the Congress(I) appears to have hit it right in, and only in, the State. Even if in the numbers game Tamil Nadu is not crucial in government formation, the BJP will have to do some soul searching for allowing allies such as the DMK and the MDMK to drift away. This was, of course, done more at behest of the State unit of the BJP, than the party high command, though Ms Jayalalithaa has a staunch supporter in the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr L. K. Advani. According to observers, by not doing more than paying lip sympathy when the DMK chief, Mr M. Karunanidhi, was put through the trauma of a midnight arrest and watching helplessly as Ms Jayalalithaa used its own ingenious find — POTA — against an NDA ally, the MDMK chief, Mr Vaiko, the BJP may have paved the way for the exit of both the parties.
As for the PMK, surely Dr S. Ramadoss, its founder, has not forgotten the humiliation meted out to him when he struck a deal with the AIADMK in 2001 for the Assembly elections. The outcome of the general elections will be indeed interesting in Tamil Nadu, the one State that will be as keenly watched as Uttar Pradesh where the Congress(I) has failed miserably to tie up an alliance with either the Samajwadi Party or the Bahujan Samaj Party.
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