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ADR-Daksh Survey Report for Bihar 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 Bihar, 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 40 MPs from Bihar is 5.07 on a scale of 10Only two MPs from Bihar -- Om Prakash Yadav and Meira Kumar - have performed above average (Average Value of Performance = 6.67 point).

The highest scoring MP from Bihar is Independent MP Om Prakash Yadav from Siwan constituency with 7.56points (Above average), followed by Meira Kumar of Congress from Sasaram constituency with 6.75 points (Above average). The lowest scoring MP from Biharis Ram Sundar Das of JD (U) from Hajipur constituency with 3.79points.

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.

Two of the MPs from Bihar have exceeded the expectation of the people.

Please see the Table I (A) for individual performance rating of all the MPs from Bihar. (The 'Performance of MP' column is the actual rating of the MPsand 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 Bihar, Better electric supply, Better roads and Better hospitals / Primary Healthcare Centres 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 Bihar which they want their MPs to focus on, Table III for top 10 issues in rural areas of the state andTable IV to know top 10 issues in urban areas.

Table –I (A)

S.No. Name of the Constituency Party Name of MP Performance of MP Expectations of voters on Governance Issues Average Performance
1 18-Siwan IND Om Prakash Yadav 7.56 5.37 Above Average
2 34-Sasaram INC Meira Kumar 6.75 5.43 Above Average
3 6-Madhubani BJP Hukmadeo Narayan Yadav 6.25 8.50 Below Average
4 5-Sitamarhi JD(U) Arjun Roy 5.93 9.29 Below Average
5 1-Valmiki Nagar JD(U) Baidyanath Prasad Mahto 5.54 7.78 Below Average
6 38-Gaya BJP Hari Manjhi 5.54 8.43 Below Average
7 31-Pataliputra JD(U) Ranjan Prasad Yadav 5.48 9.07 Below Average
8 28-Munger JD(U) Rajiv Ranjan Singh Alias Lalan Singh 5.44 7.90 Below Average
9 2-Paschim Champaran BJP Dr. Sanjay Jaiswal 5.43 8.11 Below Average
10 16-Vaishali RJD Raghuvansh Prasad Singh 5.37 9.45 Below Average
11 17-Gopalganj JD(U) Purnmasi Ram 5.36 7.63 Below Average
12 3-Purvi Champaran BJP Radha Mohan Singh 5.34 8.20 Below Average
13 33-Buxar RJD Jagada Nand Singh 5.20 8.34 Below Average
14 13-Madhepura JD(U) Sharad Yadav 5.19 7.53 Below Average
15 25-Khagaria JD(U) Dinesh Chandra Yadav 5.16 8.14 Below Average
16 30-Patna Sahib BJP Shatrughan Sinha 5.13 8.25 Below Average
17 40-Jamui JD(U) Bhudeo Choudhary 5.10 8.25 Below Average
18 4-Sheohar BJP Rama Dev 5.10 9.79 Below Average
19 29-Nalanda JD(U) Kaushalendra Kumar 5.08 8.39 Below Average
20 27-Banka IND PUTUL KUMARI 5.08 9.73 Below Average
21 8-Supaul JD(U) Vishwa Mohan Kumar 5.05 7.21 Below Average
22 36-Jahanabad JD(U) Jagdish Sharma 5.05 9.89 Below Average
23 39-Nawada BJP Bhola Singh 5.02 8.48 Below Average
24 7-Jhanjharpur JD(U) Mangani Lal Mandal 5.01 9.21 Below Average
25 12-Purnia BJP Uday Singh Alias Pappu Singh 5.01 8.48 Below Average
26 19-Maharajganj RJD Prabhunath Singh 4.98 7.72 Below Average
27 10-Kishanganj INC Mohammad Asrarul Haque 4.92 8.33 Below Average
28 20-Saran RJD Lalu Prasad 4.80 7.27 Below Average
29 15-Muzaffarpur JD(U) Captain Jai Narayan Prasad Nishad 4.75 9.28 Below Average
30 22-Ujiarpur JD(U) Aswamedh Dev 4.70 9.01 Below Average
31 23-Samastipur JD(U) Maheshwar Hazari 4.70 9.18 Below Average
32 14-Darbhanga BJP Kirti Azad 4.68 9.23 Below Average
33 32-Arrah JD(U) Meena Singh 4.57 8.68 Below Average
34 11-Katihar BJP Nikhil Kumar Choudhary 4.56 9.17 Below Average
35 37-Aurangabad JD(U) Sushil Kumar Singh 4.26 7.72 Below Average
36 35-Karakat JD(U) Mahabali Singh 4.22 8.26 Below Average
37 9-Araria BJP Pradeep Kumar Singh 4.00 7.28 Below Average
38 26-Bhagalpur BJP Syed Shahnawaz Hussain 3.98 9.22 Below Average
39 24-Begusarai JD(U) Dr. Monazir Hassan 3.88 9.33 Below Average
40 21-Hajipur JD(U) Ram Sundar Das 3.79 9.78 Below Average
  Bihar     5.07 8.41  

Table –I (B)

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Overall Top 10 issues for Bihar:

Table –II

1 Better electric supply 8.60
2 Better roads 8.59
3 Better hospitals / Primary Healthcare Centres 8.59
4 Drinking water 8.54
5 Better schools 8.54
6 Subsidized food distribution 8.53
7 Better public transport 8.50
8 Better employment opportunities 8.49
9 Better Law and Order / Policing 8.49
10 Strong Defence/Military 8.48

Top 10 issues in Rural areas:

Table –III

1 Better electric supply 8.64
2 Better roads 8.64
3 Better hospitals / Primary Healthcare Centres 8.61
4 Drinking water 8.58
5 Better schools 8.56
6 Subsidized food distribution 8.54
7 Better public transport 8.53
8 Strong Defence/Military 8.53
9 Better Law and Order / Policing 8.53
10 Better employment opportunities 8.52

Top 10 issues in Urban areas:

Table –IV

1 Subsidized food distribution 8.38
2 Better schools 8.37
3 Better hospitals / Primary Healthcare Centres 8.35
4 Eradication of Corruption 8.35
5 Better employment opportunities 8.27
6 Better public transport 8.24
7 Better electric supply 8.22
8 Drinking water 8.17
9 Trustworthiness of MP 8.16
10 Better roads 8.14

The voting behavior of people in Bihar

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 Bihar gave moreimportance to the candidate himself than the party of the candidate. The PM candidate of the party and Caste/Religion of the candidate were the 3rd and 4th most important factors which voters consider 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)

State Bihar
Why people vote:
Party 5.73
Candidate 7.74
PM Candidate 5.68
Caste/religion 4.30
Distribution of 'gifts' 3.95
Yes/No "knowledge and opinion questions": Do you know
Do you know "Gifts" for vote is illegal 72.90%
Do you know Candidates distributing 'gifts' 16.18%
Do you know You can get candidate criminal record 38.90%
Why do people vote for those with serious criminal records:
Candidate does good work 67.63%
Powerful Candidate 28.63%
Spending in elections 32.53%
Cases not serious 33.79%
Voters don't know 29.85%
Caste or religion 19.69%

Table –V (B)

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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 73 per cent of people in Bihar is well aware that distribution of gifts and money by candidates ahead of elections is illegal. However, only 39 per cent of people knew that they can get an information about the criminal records of their candidates easily.

What is also observed that over 68 per cent people in Bihar ignore the criminal record of their candidates because they feel such candidates have done "good work."Whereas around 20 per cent of people in Bihar vote for candidates facing criminal charges because they were of their own caste/ religion. Around 33 per cent people also vote for criminal candidates because they spend a lot during the elections.

Please see Table VI to know what percentage of people are aware of the use of money and muscle power in elections.

Table –VI (A)

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Table –VI (B)

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