It is a quite common practice that political parties commission surveys by various agencies to assess their winning prospects in the coming elections.
They also do periodical internal surveys through their party machinery to understand the party position at the ground level. For the party in power, the intelligence department also does independent surveys to study the people’s pulse.
The results of such surveys are not disclosed to the public, as they are purely meant for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the party.
Based on these surveys, the parties take corrective actions and decide whether they should change their candidates or not, or adopt new strategies to win the elections.
Then there are external media houses or survey agencies which do independent surveys from time to time to find out the people’s pulse and make predictions.
Some of them could be sponsored by political parties, but there are agencies which do their own surveys and release them to the media to disclose the public opinion.
It is a different matter whether such surveys really reflect the people’s opinion or fabricated. It all depends on their credibility.
But if any political party tries to plant its own surveys in the name of popular media houses or survey organisations, it only indicates the party is feeling insecure.
Those who adopt such tactics may think it would demoralise the opposition party or influence the voters’ mind should realise that it would, in fact, damage the party prospects.
Well, this is all about the latest survey purported to have been done by Times Now channel, showing that YSR Congress party headed by chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy would win 24-25 MP seats in the coming Lok Sabha elections.
Now, it has come to light that the survey was not done by Times Now, but by one survey agency ETG Research, which is indirectly controlled by Vidura Consulting Services Pvt Ltd, led by Avinash Iragavarapu, renowned as Trump Avinash, a key person in the chief minister’s office.
What is the point in projecting such exaggerated figures? The party leaders might think it would project Jagan as an invincible leader, as their general secretary V Vijay Sai Reddy says, but it would only shows lack of credibility of the party.
On record, even Jagan may say his party would win 175 out 175 assembly seats only to boost up the morale of the party cadre, but he, too, knows it is easier said than done.
Otherwise, he would not go about addressing meetings and appealing to the people to vote for his party, besides attacking his rivals – Chandrababu Naidu and Pawan Kalyan.
There is a difference between an internal survey and a home-made survey. The party should do its internal surveys but not home-made surveys. It would do more damage than good to the party.
