When the India Today-Axis opinion poll results for the 2017 elections, for Goa, were declared on National television on Friday night, the Aam Admi Party’s weekend must have gotten spoilt with the poll results showing 1 to 3 seats for AAP with a vote percentage of 16%. This is quite a downward spiral from the slightly hazy ‘Kautilya” survey of which little is really known. But it projected AAP as getting 35% of the vote share, which the party quickly made hundreds of banners of and installed them at every space they got, to influence Goan minds.
Not once did AAP discount these figures, or couch it with reality checks that these are early days. It projected these findings, not as tentative early signs, but with a finality of an ultimate result. This was done with unmatched brazenness. However as soon as the India Today-Axis Opinion poll was out, which was clear in its methodology and sample size and the constituencies it went to, the AAP spokesperson dismissed it saying that opinion polls were way off the mark from the Delhi assembly results, (In Kejriwal’s Term 1 and Term 2).
But AAP has lost the right to play this card in Goa. It has lost the right to dismiss an unfavourable opinion poll because of the manner in which it has embraced an earlier favourable one. If it wants to be received as a party with any degree of honesty, it should have the courage to treat all opinion polls equally- either go by them or dismiss them. You can’t swim with a favourable one and refuse to sink with the unfavourable.
Now coming to the India Today-Axis opinion poll, let us first agree that this cannot be a comprehensive poll because of the sample size of 2015 people. But it is an honest poll since it explicitly states its sample size and declares that it went to all constituencies. Here AAP’s 16% vote share, (% of sample polled) as per the survey, is indicative that while it may have got a larger percentage in Salcete, the effect has tapered off significantly in other parts of Goa, especially in North Goa.
There is another factor at play here. The poll was taken between September 5 and October 5, at a time when not just Mr Kejriwal but his Deputy Manish Sisodia and Delhi’s Health Minister, apart from other Delhi leaders and office bearers, made frequent trips to Goa. The AAP tourist foot fall actually kicked off Goa’s tourist season. If the survey was taken during this period, one would have expected AAP poll much more not only in terms of vote percentage but also in terms of actual seats. For a party which is boasting of getting 35 seats, the first poll run by a media house running a top news channel and magazine, gives them merely between 1 to 5 seats. While AAP’s version of reality puts the figure at 35, the bridge between reality and imagination cannot be so long and distant.
To be fair to AAP though, it has managed to make roads and this is reflected in the survey. But this has meant that the Congress, which has made an almost shocking resurgence (notwithstanding the smirk that it knew it all along), is behind the BJP at 34% vote share and 13 to 17 seats. Even this is beyond Congress’ expectations and they will be pinching themselves to confirm that these were their figures. However the detailed analysis of the results in each constituency will reveal if and how AAP has eaten away at the Congress’ core chunk.
The BJP on the other hand gets 38% of the vote share and 17-21 seats. To those who have been mapping the discontent in Goa’s villages, this figure needs a downward pruning. The BJP figure, one suspects, does not take into account that the BJP-MGP alliance is not yet cast in stone. And secondly the presence of the political formation of the BBSM , backed by the RSS cadre which will work against some BJP candidates, (post the fallout over the medium of instruction issue), doesn’t appear to have been factored, in its full entirety.
Therefore, this might end up being a race to the wire, if these poll figures hold up, thereby making the Independents and who look to be getting between 3 and 5 seats, becoming the architects of the new government formation.
While it is too early to write off AAP completely, it does look a little lonely and lost in the latest opinion poll chart. But if it wants to display ethics, it should immediately bring down all its banners and hoardings, carrying the earlier survey polls giving AAP 35% vote share.
