Paid Opinion Poll: Latest Munition in Anti-Left Propaganda
April 16,2011
The opinion poll for the West Bengal assembly elections conducted by STAR Ananda-The Nielsen Company is nothing but a part of the election-time propaganda by the anti-Left media. The opinion poll, which was aired on 14th April, has claimed that the Trinamool Congress led alliance is going to win in 215 out of 294 seats and the Left Front in only 74. TMC-Congress' vote share has been shown as increasing by almost 3.5% and the Left Front's vote share declining by nearly 4% from the Lok Sabha elections of 2009. Two weeks back, another opinion poll conducted by ORG-Headlines Today had projected TMC led alliance winning 182 seats and the Left Front 101, with the respective vote shares being 44% for the former and 43% for the latter, which is roughly the same as in 2009 Lok Sabha elections. The vote share and seat projections in these two opinion polls vary significantly, raising questions about the veracity of both.
The common conclusion that these two opinion polls arrive at - the defeat of the Left in West Bengal - reflects more of a desperate political desire rather than any underlying attempt to gauge the mood of the poll bound electorate in a rigorous or objective manner. In effect, these dubious predictions are part of the high pitch anti-Left propaganda unleashed by a section of the corporate media, to affect the morale of the Left activists and spread confusion within the electorate. However, the credibility of such opinions polls in India is near zero given their pathetic track record in forecasting actual poll outcomes.
Dismal Record
The most infamous case of poll predictions going terribly wrong was during the Lok Sabha elections of 2004. The opinion poll commissioned by NDTV and Indian Express and conducted by AC Nielsen in 2004 (the same market research company which has conducted the STAR Ananda opinion poll in 2011) had projected 287-307 seats for the BJP led NDA and 143 to 163 seats for the Congress led alliance. This was very much a part of the 'India Shining' hype created by the BJP with crores of rupees spent on 'media management'. What was the actual poll outcome? The BJP led NDA got only 181 seats and lost the elections. The Congress led UPA got 216 and formed the Government at the centre with outside support from 60 Left MPs.
The common conclusion that these two opinion polls arrive at - the defeat of the Left in West Bengal - reflects more of a desperate political desire rather than any underlying attempt to gauge the mood of the poll bound electorate in a rigorous or objective manner. In effect, these dubious predictions are part of the high pitch anti-Left propaganda unleashed by a section of the corporate media, to affect the morale of the Left activists and spread confusion within the electorate. However, the credibility of such opinions polls in India is near zero given their pathetic track record in forecasting actual poll outcomes.
Dismal Record
The most infamous case of poll predictions going terribly wrong was during the Lok Sabha elections of 2004. The opinion poll commissioned by NDTV and Indian Express and conducted by AC Nielsen in 2004 (the same market research company which has conducted the STAR Ananda opinion poll in 2011) had projected 287-307 seats for the BJP led NDA and 143 to 163 seats for the Congress led alliance. This was very much a part of the 'India Shining' hype created by the BJP with crores of rupees spent on 'media management'. What was the actual poll outcome? The BJP led NDA got only 181 seats and lost the elections. The Congress led UPA got 216 and formed the Government at the centre with outside support from 60 Left MPs.
Even exit polls, which are expected to be more accurate than opinion polls, have gone terribly wrong in India. During the state assembly elections of Uttar Pradesh in 2007, none of the exit polls predicted a simple majority for the BSP and yet it won comfortably. The BJP, which was projected to get between 80 to 118 seats, actually got only 51.
The story was similar during the West Bengal assembly elections of 2001. Almost all the major newspapers and magazines had predicted a win for the TMC-Congress alliance. The result showed how far these predictions were from the ground realities.
While there were no opinion polls conducted in West Bengal prior to the 2006 assembly elections, the Anandabazar Patrika carried several constituency wise surveys. In several constituencies where ABP had predicted a win for TMC-Congress candidates, the Left Front won with handsome margins; like in Tarakeshwar, Garbeta-2, Durgapur 1&2, Behala East etc. With such a dismal record of accuracy, opinion polls in India have lost their credibility over the years.
Dubious Methods and Motives
Why do opinion polls go wrong? The reasons are simple. The sample size of such opinion polls may be too small to gauge the actual mood of the electorate. Take the STAR Ananda-Nielsen Company poll for instance. They claim to have surveyed 29457 voters in 163 seats, out of a total electorate of 5.61 crore spread across 294 constituencies, i.e. a sample size of only around 0.05% of the total electorate. In order to get an objective picture out of this sample, the methodology of sample selection needs to be robust, which is often not the case.
It can easily be seen from the record of previous poll predictions in the corporate media that there is an inherent bias in their samples towards rightwing political parties. This is because the section of population which gets covered in such surveys mostly belong to urban areas and more affluent sections of society. Opinion polls done by agencies like the Nielsen Company, whose core competence lies in market research for fast moving consumer goods, particularly suffer from such bias. That is precisely why the survey database of such opinion polls are never made available for public scrutiny. Nobody knows, for instance, how many of the 29457 persons surveyed by Nielsen Company were women and men; how many were poor, middle class and rich; rural, semi-urban and urban; Dalit, Adivasi, OBC, Muslim and general category and so on. In other words, we simply do not know whether the sample adequately reflects the diversity of the electorate or is it a biased one.
Doubts regarding sample bias gets reinforced by reports of this particular STAR Ananda-Nielsen Company survey done with the active collaboration of the Trinamool Congress. Residents of Rahara region in the Khardaha constituency have reported that the STAR Ananda survey team had gone directly to the TMC party office and the entire survey was stage managed under the directions of a local TMC leader named Sukontho Banik near the Khardaha Cooperative Bank building. This is not surprising because the infrastructure of a market research company - which is primarily meant for gathering information on sale of consumer products from retail stores - is ill suited for surveying a large number of voters on their political and electoral choices. Inevitably, the survey has to rely upon the machinery of this or that political party. This defeats the very purpose of the survey.
Why do opinion polls go wrong? The reasons are simple. The sample size of such opinion polls may be too small to gauge the actual mood of the electorate. Take the STAR Ananda-Nielsen Company poll for instance. They claim to have surveyed 29457 voters in 163 seats, out of a total electorate of 5.61 crore spread across 294 constituencies, i.e. a sample size of only around 0.05% of the total electorate. In order to get an objective picture out of this sample, the methodology of sample selection needs to be robust, which is often not the case.
It can easily be seen from the record of previous poll predictions in the corporate media that there is an inherent bias in their samples towards rightwing political parties. This is because the section of population which gets covered in such surveys mostly belong to urban areas and more affluent sections of society. Opinion polls done by agencies like the Nielsen Company, whose core competence lies in market research for fast moving consumer goods, particularly suffer from such bias. That is precisely why the survey database of such opinion polls are never made available for public scrutiny. Nobody knows, for instance, how many of the 29457 persons surveyed by Nielsen Company were women and men; how many were poor, middle class and rich; rural, semi-urban and urban; Dalit, Adivasi, OBC, Muslim and general category and so on. In other words, we simply do not know whether the sample adequately reflects the diversity of the electorate or is it a biased one.
Doubts regarding sample bias gets reinforced by reports of this particular STAR Ananda-Nielsen Company survey done with the active collaboration of the Trinamool Congress. Residents of Rahara region in the Khardaha constituency have reported that the STAR Ananda survey team had gone directly to the TMC party office and the entire survey was stage managed under the directions of a local TMC leader named Sukontho Banik near the Khardaha Cooperative Bank building. This is not surprising because the infrastructure of a market research company - which is primarily meant for gathering information on sale of consumer products from retail stores - is ill suited for surveying a large number of voters on their political and electoral choices. Inevitably, the survey has to rely upon the machinery of this or that political party. This defeats the very purpose of the survey.
'Paid Opinion Polls'
The main problem with opinion polls, like the one done by STAR Ananda-Nielsen Company, lie in its motivations. Speaking at a seminar on "Electoral and Political Reforms" in Chennai on 12th February 2011, Chief Election Commissioner S. Y. Quraishi favoured a ban on opinion polls before elections because they affected poll prospects of political parties.
The main problem with opinion polls, like the one done by STAR Ananda-Nielsen Company, lie in its motivations. Speaking at a seminar on "Electoral and Political Reforms" in Chennai on 12th February 2011, Chief Election Commissioner S. Y. Quraishi favoured a ban on opinion polls before elections because they affected poll prospects of political parties.
"Though exit polls had been banned, opinion polls are still allowed and political parties are hit by it," Quraishi said at a seminar…Underlining the need to ban opinion polls conducted before elections, he said it was a major problem which could even lead to "paid opinion polls". "In the circumstances, when news can be paid, even opinion polls can be paid," he said.
(Outlook, news.outlookindia.com/item.aspx)
The STAR Ananda-Nielsen Company opinion poll needs to be seen in this backdrop. The ABP group in general, and STAR Ananda in particular, has always been hostile towards the Left Front and openly aligned with the TMC led anti-Left opposition. An opinion poll commissioned by such a media outfit to an American market research company on the prospects of the Communists in the assembly elections can be anything but objective and credible. Whether such propaganda under the garb of opinion polls should be allowed to vitiate the poll process is a moot point.
(Outlook, news.outlookindia.com/item.aspx)
The STAR Ananda-Nielsen Company opinion poll needs to be seen in this backdrop. The ABP group in general, and STAR Ananda in particular, has always been hostile towards the Left Front and openly aligned with the TMC led anti-Left opposition. An opinion poll commissioned by such a media outfit to an American market research company on the prospects of the Communists in the assembly elections can be anything but objective and credible. Whether such propaganda under the garb of opinion polls should be allowed to vitiate the poll process is a moot point.
Opinion polls are really farcical ...
ReplyDeleteBUT this time the CPI(M) [ Callous Party of Idiotic Marxists ] led Left Front Government [ a social evil ] in West Bengal will be thrown into the Bay of Bengal .