Delhi Polls - Why the Media backed 'Opinion' Polls are Misleading?

It is as if AAP has got hold of some 'Bramhastra'. The party which was predicted to go into an oblivion post Delhi Assembly elections 2015, not 2 months ago, is now suddenly being hailed as a sure shot winner by its all time Cheer Leaders, the Indian mainstream Media. What exactly changed in the last 2 months? What trick did BJP miss? I would try to analyze how much of it is true and trustworthy, but before all of this a short note on who this election is really fought between.

Battle Royale

It will be quite incorrect to say this fight is between BJP and AAP (not because Congress is a non entity here). It would also be incorrect to say that this fight is between 2 individuals Bedi vs Kejriwal or Modi vs AAP or Kejriwal vs Shah etc. In real terms, BJP had lost the fight even before it began. BJP had no answer to AAP's carpet bombing. Thousands of energized AAP volunteers swarmed the city and visited every potential household, they assessed, might vote for them. In contrast BJP was relying on Modi rallies and eventually paid a good price for sitting idle. However their supporters were not silent and campaigned aggressively both in Social media and on Ground. On the other hand, AAP, despite having a strong campaign was not taken well by the voters. They had help, from the Media. Media played one giant role in negating the perception of 'Bhagoda' about Kejriwal. Moments back an 'independent' journalist in ABP news said AAP completed all its promises (free bijli, free water) except Lokpal and when it could not pass Lokpal, it left the govt. due to moral reasons. Now how true is that? Did AAP not leave for Kejriwal's Prime Ministerial ambitions? So in a way it would not be wrong to say that in effect, Delhi elections are between Indian Media and BJP supporters with AAP and BJP acting as the face of these two entities.

Lutyens dominated Media supports AAP as it is their last resort to undermine their nemesis, Modi. Not for no reasons have these opinion polls sprung up, hailing Kejriwal to be heading for a sweeping victory. Let's analyze these polls from an electoral viewpoint.

Story the numbers tell

How did the parties fair in last 2 polls
AS 2013 - BJP 33%, AAP 30%, Congress 25%
LS 2014 - BJP 47%, AAP 33%, Congress 15%

To naked eyes, it may appear that both BJP and AAP gained at the expense of Congress and Others, with BJP gaining more in the Lok Sabha elections, compared to the Assembly. However this is not true. Various sampling experiments reveal that AAP lost a SIGNIFICANT chunk of voters to BJP, especially the educated and/or middle class voters who were fed up with the AAP theatrics. This could be as high as 10% of the voters base. Some of these would also include voters who voted Kejriwal for CM but wanted Modi as PM. So the new figures should have been BJP 43%, AAP 20% and Congress 25% but the story does not end here. BJP would also gain some votes from Congress (~2% due to National Anti Incumbency) and Others (~2% due to BJP being a National party). On the other hand, many Congress floater voters (who were/are anti BJP) would not have voted AAP in Assembly thinking it to be a wastage would have considered AAP as a more viable Anti BJP alternative in Lok Sabha, so as high as 8% of them would migrate to AAP. AAP would also gain 5% from the 'Others' section as historically, these voters were neither fond of BJP nor Congress. So rightfully the number read 47%, 33% and 15%. So it is conclusive that AAP did lose a huge chunk of votes in the Lok Sabha.

The Loyal Voter Base

Each party has a dedicated votebase.
BJP - If one analyzes BJP's voteshare across elections, it has hovered around 33% to 52% in last few terms, and never went below 33% (at the peak of AAP wave) in the last two and a half decades decade. So it is safe to assume, BJP has a loyal vote base of 30% in Delhi

Congress - Congress has degrown since 2009 Lok Sabha elections in Delhi. Their low of 25% in Assembly 2013 was soon eclipsed by a new low of 15% in Lok Sabha 2014. Despite that fact that Congress was a loser in Assembly and a sure shot loser in 2014, 15% still held on to it. However some of these may realize that voting a losing entity is going to be futile and except for a few scattered pockets, Congress' story is all but over this time, so atleast a 1/3rd of the voters, the educated and the less emotional one would desert Congress, pegged at around 5%. So the loyal votebase for Congress is 10%

AAP - There are very few elections to analyze AAP's loyal base but the 2 elections DO give a story. As mentioned earlier, a huge chunk (as high as 10%) deserted AAP in Lok Sabha. However 20% of them still hung on to the party, despite its failures, theatrics and over ambitiousness. So AAP loyal vote base forms of 20%

Others - Small parties like BSP, INLD, SP etc have their pockets of influence in the city. Add to it the independents. The others vote share was around 5% in Lok Sabha and 12% in Assembly, which is understandable given that voters tend to polarize towards known parties in Lok Sabha elections than in Assembly. Also due to the higher number of seats in Assembly (70 to 7), the number of Independents with localized influence increase in an Assembly election. Hence the others would have a Loyal vote base of 10%.

Total Loyal Vote Base = 30% + 10% + 20% + 10% = 70%

The Floater Voter Base

These are the voters who would decide the fate of this election or any election for that matter. In 2013 and 2014 and even before that, these voters have shifted their allegiances across parties. But who are these voters and who are they likely to vote this time and for what reason? Let us try to further segregate these voters into segments and try to analyze which way they would vote.

1. Young Urban women (3%) - Aged between 18 to 35, they are approximately 3% in number. This does not mean that there are just 5% women in Delhi between the age of 18 and 35. This means that those women who do not have any party loyalty are approximately 3%
Who did they vote in 2013? - Possibly AAP
Who will they vote in 2014? - Possibly BJP
Who will they vote in 2015? - Possibly BJP
Driving Reason - Face of Kiran Bedi and issues related to women
Is there a swing compared to 2014 - No

2. Non Anti BJP Minorities (6%) - This group comprises mostly of voters who are not hostile to BJP and can vote to any party which they perceive would raise there issues
Who did they vote in 2013? AAP, BJP, Congress in that order
Who did they vote in 2014? BJP, AAP, Congress in that order
Who will they vote in 2015? AAP BJP Congress in that order
Driving Reason - BJP govt. did some work for them bu not enough to be perceived
Is there a swing compared to 2014 - Yes

3 Rural Settlers population, working class (5%) - This is the group which comprises of rural class (excluding above 2 categories)
Who did they vote in 2013? Congress, BJP, AAP in that order
Who did they vote in 2014? BJP, Congress, AAP in that order
Who will they vote in 2015? BJP, AAP, Congress in that order
Driving Reason - BJP's promise of rehab and growing pro poor image
Is there a swing compared to 2014 - Yes for AAP, No for BJP

4 Poor and weaker sections (11%) - The group of people who represent the poorest of the poor who lack even the basic facilities.
Who did they vote in 2013? AAP, Congress, BJP in that order
Who did they vote in 2014? AAP, BJP, Congress in that order
Who will they vote in 2015? AAP, BJP, Congress in that order
Driving Reason - AAP has been successful in convincing this set of voters and hence will get a major chunk of it
Is there a swing compared to 2014 - No

5 Others (5%) - The remaining population who are mostly in the outer areas of Delhi.
Who did they vote in 2013? BJP, Congress, AAP in that order
Who did they vote in 2014? BJP, Congress, AAP in that order
Who will they vote in 2015? BJP AAP, Congress in that order
Driving Reason - AAP was limited to the city region in 2013 but has now penetrated into the outskirts
Is there a swing compared to 2014 - Yes

The above 5 categories are mutually exclusive among themselves and one is not present in the 2nd. However these 5 categories are not exhaustive and would also be present in the 'loyal' voter base of the respective parties.

The partywise takeway of floater base would be

BJP - 1.5%+2%+2.5%+3%+2.5% = 11.5%
Congress - 0%+1%+0.5%+0.5%+0.5% = 2.5%
AAP - 1.5%+3%+2%+7.5%+2% = 16%

AAP would walk away with the majority of floater vote base as per my analysis, BJP a close 2nd and Congress not in the picture. The total voteshare would hence look like
BJP - 30+11.5 = 41.5%
Congress - 10+2.5 = 12.5%
AAP - 20+16 = 36%
Others - 10%

At a this vote share (BJP 41.5%, AAP, 36%, Congress 12.5%, Others 10%), the seats tally should hover around
BJP - 50-54
AAP - 12-16
Congress - 1-5
Others - 0-2

Hence the Media run Opinion Polls with the story of sudden surge of Kejriwal should be taken with a sack of salt.

To conclude, this is just an individual analysis without backing of any segregated sample survey. So it is possible that the analysis might not hold true during the counting day and results are quite different from what is stated here. However if logic is to be believed, the results should not be much different from what is stated here. What happens eventually will be known that day, for Indian voters have a knack of giving surprising results.

10 Reasons to vote out AAP forever

Elections are back in Delhi but the daily dosage of AAP 'tamasha' continued after May 2014 Polls and as AAP does, it has continued to be in election mode, whether or not there was an election around. A significant percentage of AAP's support, across India has been disillusioned even after the Lok Sabha elections in last May. Their free fall which started in January 2015, has continued till date. It was evident from the Assembly Bye Polls in Punjab later in 2014, when AAP lost deposits in all the seats, just a few months after stunning everyone by winning 100% of their (4) Lok Sabha seats from the state. But what would become of Delhi? Only Time will tell if Delhites are willing to correct their mistakes of 2013 or not but here are 10 reasons why they should strongly consider voting out AAP this time and making it irrelevant forever so that no other opportunist thug dares to fool people in the name of revolution.

1. Surrender to Kiran Bedi  - Not once but thrice, has Arvind Kejriwal offered Ms. Bedi, AAP's CM candidature and she has rejected it all the 3 times. Each time during elections, Kejriwal would offer her CM post, after getting nervous by the news of Bedi joining BJP. In doing so he acknowledged that Bedi was and is a far better face for CM than Kejriwal himself and why not? Afterall Kiran Bedi was receiving honours as a fearless IPS officer when Kejriwal was playing peekaboo as a child.
2. No Cliche No story - Last time one used to hear cliched terms like 'Lokpal', 'Swaraj', 'RTI', 'Raw Data', 'Raw Video' etc. Kejriwal had fed these terms to his Troll army who had mugged up these key words to answer any question that came their way. This time these words are missing but there are new sets of cliches, "Free Bijli" "Free Pani", "No Corruption". Well these new cliched terms like Free Bijli, Free Pani et all are as useless as the previous ones in solving the problems of Delhites which are (or were), high food inflation, Law and order, women security, Jobs for youth, business environment. Not to mention the Free bijli was never free and there was no water for many of them, let alone free water
3. More hypocritical than the word hypocrite - Kejriwal wanted every one to resign from Reliance, HSBC and other corrupt companies. On his nomination, to flex his muscle, he appealed to all his blind followers to take leave and descend to his nomination venue. He, then cribbed about how his wife could not join him because she was unable to take leave. So the paid time offs or resignations apply to everyone else but to him and his holy family. He has a different set of rules for him, compared to others. This was just an example. My intention is to finish this blog and hence would not give more examples of his hypocrisy
4. Camera fever - Not many of you would have read the story of the 'evil' aunt who was jealous of the beauty of her niece the princess and her obsession never let our out of her makeup room. Kejriwal has a similar obsession with the Camera. He wants to remain in news. Being in news is as important to him as breathing or drinking water. No other politician has ever been so publicity hungry as Kejriwal. He will do itemgiri even if he becomes CM again. to remain in news. A man whose chores are appearing for interviews will never find time to work for those who elected him
5. What LIES beneath. - In my previous blog, I already highlighted how AAP ran deceitful campaigns about increasing prices of Cancer drugs. There is not a day which has gone by, when Kejriwal has not uttered a plethora of lies. To mention one of the many million lies, he had said during Lok Sabha elections, " I will never leave Varanasi. Even if I lose i will stay here and work". Any child would know how many times Kejriwal has gone to Varanasi since his one sided loss. If one can lie shamelessly in the name of his children, there is no reason to believe him when he says; "I promise to work for you now and not repeat mistakes of last time" or for that matter when he says ANYTHING.
6. AAP School of certification - Well some have already faced it, but soon, everyone will. Once people start questioning AAP, they will be branded as Traitors, corrupts and agents of every industrialist to have walked this planet. Just moments back I saw AAP Trolls were abusing Bhushans (both Shanti and Prashant) for questioning Kejriwal. I have no sympathy for Bhushans for their stand on various issues but those who couldn't even stand by the Founding fathers and chief Chanda Donors of the party, will they stand with anyone else? Be ready to get a Certificate from AAP on anything you say against them
7. Corruption - Yes you read it right. AAP is as corrupt (if not more) than any of the other mainstream party. Just because they give some fictional donor list on their website does not make them 'honest'. Their sources of funds are as grey as it can get. Fictional names like Gandhi, Jinnah, Nehru have donated to AAP. This is the transparency they talk about. It is a pity that other parties like BJP are too incompetent to highlight their fraud.
8. Chaos -  AAP believes in creating chaos, dharnas and jams. If you do not remember those Dharna days of last January-February, you will do well to remember how their rowdyism and hooliganism affect day to day life of city dwellers. It is not a faking news that AAP Trolls descended in a hospital, when they were in power and forcefully administered TB medicines to patients who were not even TB patients. You surely do not want to face a situation where an AAP volunteer forces you to take Diabetes medicine, when you do not suffer from Diabetes just out of good intention.
9. Ambani Agent - Guess which government gifted Rs 300 Crores to Ambani from the taxes you pay? It was a government which keeps calling everyone Ambani agent. They had promised to make Electricity cheaper by acting against 'corrupt' power distribution companies but instead what they do? Take a portion of the money from the taxes you pay, meant to build schools, hospitals, roads etc and give it to Ambani, in the form of Subsidy. And TV channels like Aaj tak, CNN-IBN which have significant stake of the Ambanis do give immense coverage to Kejriwal. Surely one has to be an Ambani agent to get so much of footage from his channels. It would be interesting to find out what Kejriwal and Co. did in 2013 after which TV channels lifted the 8 month black out on him. (Kejriwal was blacked out by TV channels from December 2012 to Mid 2013, but all of a sudden he started to get abysmally high coverage)
10. And More lies - By now if anyone still doubts that Kejriwal is not a 'Jhooth ka Pulinda';, he needs to see a Psychiatrist and not keep browsing internet for consoling self about his innocence. Last month I saw posters of a survey by Total TV which claimed AAP to win with thumping majority, only to be thrashed by the Channel's Chief editor who refuted such claims to be 'imaginary'.

I am not here to support any BJP or Congress. This post is solely against AAP and urges the readers (especially those who are from Delhi) to vote out AAP and make this party irrelevant forever.. There are a lot of bad politicians around, we do not need more of them. We need those who can clean the mess, not those who spread 'Rayata' and 'Gandagi'. 

Media Terrorism overwhelms PM Narendra Modi

For 12 years, current Indian Prime Minister defied numerous bouts of Media's propaganda and deliberate campaign by a group of powerful Media Editors across electronic channels and print editions, who were infamously termed as 'News Traders' by the PM himself during his run up to the election for the office of the Prime Minister. The more they attacked the man, the stronger he grew. Thanks to a vast army of Online supporters who were well informed, rebellious and aggressive towards every Media misreporting for they had found an alternative channel (Social Media) to counter the propaganda. They would have expected that the Media misreporting would come to a halt once Modi assumes the office of the Prime Minister. They were soon proved wrong.

In the last few months, the kind of rumour mongering undertaken by Indian Media would ace bring fiction writers to shame. This report  gives only a small percentage of hit jobs undertaken by the Indian Media. The main targets for these reports other than the PM himself have primarily been HRD Minister Smriti Irani, Former Health Minister Harshvardhan and even non political entities which have a leaning towards the Modi govt. Scores of examples are there when Media tried to either blow any particular issue out of proportion, creating a mountain out of a molehill or completely misreport a particular item. I will select a few of these and analyze them.

Some critical issues, grossly mishandled by Indian Media recently

1. Conversion Row - The conversion row which stormed the Parliament was the umpteenth instance where one could see a clear nexus between Opposition parties and the Media Terrorists working in tandem. Lopsided debate would hog the limelight of the prime time shows. The same would be used to create an uproar in Parliament and that in turn would feed media reporting subsequently. This was a vicious cycle of sorts. Media got exposed here on 2 counts. First, their desperate attempt to link the Conversion row with the rise of Hindu extremism. Anyone who knows how to use Google would know that such events are mundane stuff. Even in 2013, 2012 and the years before that, the Hinduwadi organizations have been executing 'reconversions' of people who mostly followed Christianity or Islam. Media cannot get benefit of doubt on this for not knowing about this because ordinary citizens like me know about these 'reconversions' through Archived articles of Media websites so it is a foregone conclusion that those who have reported these events in the past (albeit with far lesser coverage than now) would definitely know about these events and their attempt to link it to the rise of Hindu extremism, at best reeks of some foul play. Second, their silence on similar conversions over the last 60 years from Hinduism to Christianity/Islam and not question the conversions of other institutions , Christian Missionaries to be specific and there much ambitious PROJECT JOSHUA, using Money, Power and deception; is enough to infer that Media is playing to the agenda and not reporting properly
2. Black Money Handling - To be honest, I have not been very happy about the way, Modi govt. has gone about the Black Money issue. However there is no reason to question their integrity and honesty at this point. The process they have adopted is slow and bureaucratic in nature and there might still be a long way to go before black money is retrieved. However the Media reporting on this was something which BJP never promised. They have allowed opposition parties to highlight a fake claim of bringing money within 100 days, which PM or any of his colleagues never promised. Moreover, they tried to blow the Supreme Court's comments on this issue out of proportions, without showing the actual official judgement from the Hon'ble Court. The Media again, appears to be working on an agenda and would somehow want to make it appear that the current Govt. has been a failure in just 100 days of assuming office.
3. HRD & Health Ministries hitjobs - From running stories like "Health Budget has been cut mid year" to "Prices of essential drugs have been raised by 10 times", Media has pioneered the art of 'Fiction News reporting, because none of these news were true. Coming to HRD Ministry, Media's ill intentions were discovered at an early stage when they tried to create a non existent fire of 'Saffronization of Indian Education". From reports like "Non Veg food banned in IIT" to "Schooling compulsory on Christmas Day", not only has the media indulged in false reporting, but also deliberately trying to give issues a communal colour. For example 25th December was chosen as 'Good Governance Day' because it happens to be former PM and BJP patron AB Vajpayee's birthday along with the birthday of Mahamana Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya, but many renowned journalists and editors tried to give it a communal colour by linking it with 'Christmas being hijacked by Hinduwadis'. It can only be left to one's imagination as to why did Media choose these 2 ministers. One of them fought Rahul Gandhi in Amethi, while other fought Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi 2013, both of them were pushed and publicized by the Media beyond measure during Elections. Was there any agenda behind hitting these 2 ministers, is something only they can tell
4. Attack on the Security Apparatus - The lesser said about this issue, the better. Media wanted Press conferences to be conducted by PM on Chinese incursions and Pakistani ceasefire violations on the Border. Such a situation becomes a devil-ditch situation for the governments. They cannot say anything publicly on acts against rival nations to maintain plausible deniability and simultaneously, they cannot deny inaction before their public as well. Under such a situation, it is the duty of the Media to play along with the govt. However Media made multiple attempts to trap the govt. on these issues. The admission of such acts would lead India to a war like situation before Chine/Pakistan. The deniability of such acts would make the local populace fill with agony against Govt's inactions. Again Media chose to dictate agenda, for entities best known to them.

Almost 8 months have passed but the Indian Media, by and large continues to present views as news. The shift of regime at the centre has had little affects on their loyalty. One can think of 3 possible reasons for this

1. Media Leanings -  The example (1) above gives the feeling that Indian Media by and large is Left leaning, Anti Hindu and Anti Development. There may be Nationalist elements in its fold but in the current situation, the important and powerful positions in the Media is being occupied by Leftists who want to create the fear psychosis of 'Hindu Fundamentalists' destroying their 'Idea of India'
2. Link with Enemies -  Media's tie ups with foreign agencies, especially of Pakistan cannot be ruled out. If one carefully analyzes the stand taken by prominent Indian Journos and Anti India forces such as Lashkar -e- Taiyabba, JuD, ISI etc, they are found to be exactly the same. Be it the plight of forcefully exiled Kashmiri Hindus, Indian Army, War on Terrorism or Narendra Modi
3. Pressure of the Powerful -  It is possible that Media is not doing these intentionally but out of threat and pressure from those who would lose politically, monetarily and otherwise if such sort of reporting is not done.

What Steps should the Narendra Modi government take to counter Media terrorism?

In my views, Narendra Modi should stop acting like Vajpayee or Nehru and start acting like Sardar Patel for which he was elected. Some of these steps would be to.

1. Pass strict laws and impose laws on Media, allowing government to take stern action on cases pertaining to Internal Security threats due to misreporting
2. Set example by acting against Corrupt channels (for example shutting down a TV channel for its Tax Frauds will make other channels fall in line)
3. File a horde of lawsuits against all those who have indulged in Media Terrorism and make them pay for it financially.
4. Do not allow Cabinet Ministers to give random interviews. Ministry should have only 1 official press briefing channels with no direct access of any Minister to any journalist

Other steps would include

1. Ensure that PM Modi, does not play to the agenda of Media. In a survey Modi was described as 'loved by millions and hated by hundreds'. He would do well to not risk the love of these millions by trying to impress those hundreds who hate him
2. Use the mandate to take stern actions and set examples. Play it smart and not allow Media to force actions of rogue elements to officials
3. Modi has got votes not just for Development, but to strengthen Secularism of the country. He should make honest efforts to bridge the disparity by working on the real agendas of majority community (Kashmiri Hindus, bringing equal laws for all)which has been oppressed for centuries
4. Also break the backbone of Media by starting investigations against the Corrupt politicians who act as lifelines to the Media terrorists.

Modi did not reach where he is because of the Media. he reached there, in spite of it and with the support of millions of his followers. Riding 2 boats may not bring him to shore. He has to choose wisely and the one which has been a proven success formula for him.