ADR-Daksh Survey Report for Chhattisgarh 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 Chhattisgarh , 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 highest scoring MP from Chhattisgarh is Dinesh Kashyap of BJP fromBastarconstituency with 7.56points (Above average),followed by Charan Das Mahantof Congress from Korba constituency with 7.15 points (Above average).Sohan Potai of BJP from Kanker constituency is on the 3rd position with 7.04 points.

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.

However,out of 11 MPs from Chhattisgarh only 2 MPs have exceeded the expectation of the people. And 5 MPs have performed above average (The Average performance rating is 6.67)

Please see the Table I for individual performance rating of all the MPs from Chhattisgarh . (The 'Overall Performance Rating' 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)

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 Chhattisgarh Subsidy for seeds and fertilizers, Irrigation Programmes and Drinking water 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 Chhattisgarh 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

S.No.ConstituencyName of MPPartyExpectations of Voters on governanceissueOverall Performance RatingAverage Performance
102Bastar (ST)Dinesh KashyapBJP7.767.56Above Average
206KorbaCharan Das MahantINC7.137.15Above Average
303Kanker (ST)Sohan PotaiBJP7.457.04Above Average
401Sarguja (ST)Murarilal SinghBJP7.287.02Above Average
504Raigarh (ST)Vishnu Deo SaiBJP7.186.88Above Average
609DurgSaroj PandeyBJP7.156.62Below Average
708RajnandgaonMadhusudan YadavBJP6.416.49Below Average
807BilaspurDilip Singh JudevBJP6.316.09Below Average
905Janjgir-Champa(SC)Shrimati Kamla Devi PatleBJP6.406.06Below Average
1011MahasamundChandulal Sahu (Chandu Bhaiya)BJP6.535.99Below Average
1110RaipurRamesh BaisBJP6.025.48Below Average
 CHHATTISGARH  6.836.54 

Overall Top 10 issues for Chhattisgarh :

Table –II

1Subsidy for seeds and fertilizers7.54
2Irrigation Programmes7.35
3Drinking water7.17
4Better roads7.12
5Trustworthiness of MP7.09
6Empowerment of Women7.09
7Better schools7.09
8Better public transport7.02
9Subsidized food distribution7.00
10Security for women6.96

Top 10 issues in Rural areas:

Table –III

1Subsidy for seeds and fertilizers7.53
2Irrigation Programmes7.35
3Drinking water7.12
4Better roads7.08
5Empowerment of Women7.06
6Trustworthiness of MP7.06
7Better schools7.01
8Better public transport6.94
9Subsidized food distribution6.94
10Security for women6.93

Top 10 issues in Urban areas:

Table –IV

1Better schools7.51
2Traffic congestion7.48
3Drinking water7.44
4Better public transport7.41
5Lower food prices for Consumers7.39
6Better roads7.35
7Subsidized food distribution7.30
8Better Law and Order / Policing7.30
9Trustworthiness of MP7.27
10Better garbage clearance7.21

The voting behavior of people in Chhattisgarh

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 Chhattisgarh gave more importance to the candidate himself than the party of the candidate. The Caste/Religion of the candidateand PM candidate of the partywere 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

StateCHHATTISGARH
  
Why people vote: 
Party6.41
Candidate6.98
PM Candidate5.41
Caste/religion5.80
Distribution of 'gifts'5.23
Yes/No "knowledge and opinion questions": Do you know 
"Gifts" for vote is illegal69.74%
Candidates distributing 'gifts'30.63%
You can get candidate criminal record55.31%
Why do people vote for those with serious criminal records: 
Candidate does good work57.75%
Powerful Candidate39.29%
Spending in elections31.72%
Cases not serious51.75%
Voters don't know53.69%
Caste or religion44.73%

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 70 per cent of people in Chhattisgarh is well aware that distribution of gifts and money by candidates ahead of elections is illegal. However, only 56 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 58 per cent people in Chhattisgarh ignore the criminal record of their candidates because they feel such candidates have done "good work."Whereas around 45 per cent of people in Chhattisgarh vote for candidates facing criminal charges because they were of their own caste/ religion. Around 32 per cent people also vote for criminal candidates because they spend a lot of money during the elections.

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