With the forthcoming byelections being seen as a “do-or-die” battle, leaders, right from the Chief Minister himself to the candidates across the political parties, are eager to understand the public mood, well ahead of the voting day.
This has led to a sudden spurt in surveys to gauge the public opinion in the constituencies for which bypolls would be held. The surveys have come as a boon for students who are presently on summer vacation. The students are being employed, on a part-time basis, by the agencies entrusted with the responsibility of conducting the surveys.
“We give them (the students) Rs 5,000 per survey. We generally engage them for three days. They are asked to visit a few villages and get information from individuals from different walks of life,” said the head of an agency that conducts such surveys. These agencies are hired by leaders to conduct pre-poll surveys on a weekly and monthly basis.
“The rates vary from survey to survey. It all depends on the sample size. If we have to get opinions from five thousand voters in each of the Assembly segments, we charge Rs 2 lakh for each segment. Depending on the request, we cha-rge anything from Rs 25,000 to Rs 4 lakh per survey,” said a survey agency head. Besides the leaders, for the first time, almost all the regional news channels have engaged institutions for the pre-poll surveys.
According to one estimate, more than 30 institutions are presently involv-ed in the survey ‘business.’
“It is a do-or-die battle for all the main political parties. Naturally the numbers of surveys have incre-ased,” a senior Congress leader said. According to sources, the AICC has entrusted a certain agency to conduct pre-poll surveys to gauge the voters’ mood for its internal assessment. As far as the CM’s sponsored survey is concerned, he is said to be keen to know the voters’ mood in every polling booth and this has made the sample size huge.