Puneites are inclined to BJP: PRAB survey

 Tuesday, 3 January 2017 

Pune: An extensive survey conducted by Political Research and Analysis Bureau (PRAB) for Sakal has revealed the inclination of voters ahead of the upcoming Municipal Corporation elections. The findings have shown how the political scenario in the city is likely to change and how the ruling parties need to work hard if they wish to retain power in the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC). 

The survey was conducted in all the new 41 wards of the PMC through open and confidential questionnaires. Around five per cent of the voters in every ward answered the open questionnaires. Thus, out of the 24,88,570 eligible voters, around 1,31,400 expressed their opinion in the survey. The voters answered questions on topics like local issues, the perspective of the candidates in their area, internal issues in the political parties, effects of social issues like Maratha Kranti Mook Morcha on the election results, effects of the decisions by the Central and State government, party switching, actions and decisions by different party representatives over various issues and so on. Voters were made to answer questions on all topics following which they had to answer their choice of political party and candidates in the upcoming elections. 

However, on a surprising note, most voters have mentioned that their favourite choice of political party is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), followed by the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). Congress, Shiv Sena, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and 

Republican Party are among the remaining choices of the voters respectively. 

“Discovering people’s preference through such surveys helps run a political policy-based campaign. Questions related to local issues and events show the inclination of the voters. People also seemed curious about the newly introduced freedom that allows the voter to vote for four candidates at a time,” said Chandrakant Bhujbal, Director of PRAB. 

He said, “The survey has been conducted using correct scientific methods and the results are close to accurate. Another important aspect of the survey is that along with the common man, we have also taken the opinions of some of the influential people in the city in a confidential poll.” Youth make up for a significant proportion of the voters this time, thus the inclination of the young voters are very important as far as the results of PMC Elections 2017 are concerned.