ADR-Daksh Survey Report for Punjab 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 Punjab, 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 13 MPs from Punjab is 3.52 on a scale of 10. None of the MPs from Punjab performed above average (Average Value of Performance = 6.67 point).

The highest scoring MP from Punjab is PRENEET KAUR of INC from Patiala constituency with 3.99 points (much below the average point of 6.67). The lowest scoring MPs from Punjab are SANTOSH CHOWDHARY of INC from Hoshiarpur constituencyand SHER SINGH GHUBAYA of SAD from Ferozpur constituency with 3.37 point each.

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.

None of the MPs from Punjab has exceeded the expectation of the people.

Please see the Table I (A) for individual performance rating of all the MPs from Punjab. (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 Punjab, Better Employment Opportunities, Subsidized food distribution and Eradication of Corruption 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 Punjab 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	13-Patiala	INC	PRENEET KAUR	3.99	7.37	Below Average
2	8-Fatehgarh Sahib	INC	SUKHDEV SINGH	3.64	6.84	Below Average
3	11-Bathinda	SAD	HARSIMRAT KAUR	3.62	6.45	Below Average
4	7-Ludhiana	INC	Manish Tiwari	3.61	6.64	Below Average
5	9-Faridkot	SAD	PARAMJIT KAUR GULSHAN	3.61	6.47	Below Average
6	12-Sangrur	INC	VIJAY INDERSINGLA	3.55	6.75	Below Average
7	4-Jalandhar	INC	MOHINDER SINGH KAYPEE	3.42	6.66	Below Average
8	3-Khadoor Sahib	SAD	DR. RATTAN SINGH AJNALA	3.41	6.25	Below Average
9	1-Gurdaspur	INC	PARTAP SINGH BAJWA	3.39	7.02	Below Average
10	6-Anandpur Sahib	INC	RAVNEET SINGH	3.39	6.50	Below Average
11	2-Amritsar	BJP	NAVJOT SINGH SIDHU	3.38	6.33	Below Average
12	10-Ferozpur	SAD	SHER SINGH GHUBAYA	3.37	6.46	Below Average
13	5-Hoshiarpur	INC	SANTOSH CHOWDHARY	3.37	7.58	Below Average
	Punjab			3.52	6.71	Below Average

Table –I (B)

Overall Top 10 issues for Punjab:

Table -II

1	Better employment opportunities	7.74
2	Subsidized food distribution	7.72
3	Eradication of Corruption	7.65
4	Empowerment of Women	7.18
5	Better hospitals / Primary Healthcare Centres	7.15
6	Training for jobs	6.99
7	Drinking water	6.91
8	Better roads	6.90
9	Better public transport	6.81
10	Better Law and Order / Policing	6.77

Table –II (A)

Table –II (B)

Top 10 issues in Rural areas:

Table –III (A)

1	Subsidized food distribution	7.88
2	Better employment opportunities	7.82
3	Eradication of Corruption	7.68
4	Better hospitals / Primary Healthcare Centres	7.29
5	Empowerment of Women	7.23
6	Training for jobs	7.12
7	Better roads	6.94
8	Better Law and Order / Policing	6.93
9	Drinking water	6.93
10	Better public transport	6.90

Table - III (B)

Table – III (C)

Top 10 issues in Urban areas:

Table –IV (A)

1	Eradication of Corruption	7.58
2	Better employment opportunities	7.53
3	Subsidized food distribution	7.28
4	Better garbage clearance	7.24
5	Empowerment of Women	7.04
6	Lower food prices for Consumers	6.94
7	Drinking water	6.86
8	Facility for pedestrians and cyclists on roads	6.80
9	Better roads	6.79
10	Better hospitals / Primary Healthcare Centres	6.73

Table –IV (B)

Table –IV (C)

The voting behavior of people in Punjab

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 Punjab gave moreimportance to the candidatehimself 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	Punjab
Why people vote:
Party	5.77
Candidate	8.70
PM Candidate	5.03
Caste/religion	4.03
Distribution of 'gifts'	3.63
Yes/No "knowledge and opinion questions": Do you know
Do you know "Gifts" for vote is illegal	91.02%
Do you know Candidates distributing 'gifts'	22.37%
Do you know You can get candidate criminal record	28.52%
Why do people vote for those with serious criminal records:
Candidate does good work	74.16%
Powerful Candidate	44.51%
Spending in elections	52.64%
Cases not serious	31.44%
Voters don't know	35.32%
Caste or religion	38.20%

Table –V (B)

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 91 per cent of people in Punjab are well aware that distribution of gifts and money by candidates ahead of elections is illegal. However, only 29 per cent people knew that they can get an information about the criminal records of their candidates easily.

What is also observed that over 74 per cent people in Haryana ignore the criminal record of their candidates because they feel such candidates have done "good work."Whereas around 39 per cent people vote for candidates facing criminal charges because they were of their own caste/ religion. Around 53 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)

Table –VI (B)

Table –VI (C)

Table –VI (D)