The Federal survey: Price rise, unemployment are biggest poll issues

What's the Indian voter thinking? What are her biggest election issues? Does she think Narendra Modi has been a good prime Minister?

And the big question – whom will she vote for this time round?

The Federal and its sister entity Puthiyathalaimurai engaged Apt Research Group for an extensive pan-India survey to gauge the pulse of the nation. The survey threw up some surprising answers. We share them with you, starting today (February 12).

You can also watch our panel discussion with experts, with elaborate region-wise graphics, on The Federal YouTube channel.

Question 1: Change in economic status

Which among the following describes best the change in your economic status in the past five years?

Nearly 44 per cent of the respondents across the nation said the economic situation has remained more or less the same since 2019. Nearly 35 per cent said the situation, in fact, has improved, while nearly 18 per cent said it has deteriorated.

The average voter opinion appears to be the same across all the regions of the country.

Question 2: Top Central initiatives

What, according to you, are the top 3 initiatives of the Modi government?

The United Payments Interface (UPI), supply of free rations to over 80 crore people, and providing safe drinking through the Jal Jeevan Mission topped this list at the national level.

Financial assistance to farmers through direct benefit transfer (DBT), enhancing India’s stature internationally, and improving the quality standards of national highways were the other favourite schemes of the Modi government.

In the East and the West, the free ration scheme Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) proved to be voter's favourite.

Question 3: Beneficiary-voters

Are you a beneficiary of any of the schemes implemented by the Union government?

A surprising 63 per cent of the respondents said they were not the beneficiary of any government scheme. The maximum number of beneficiaries of the schemes were in the East, at 36 per cent.

Question 4: New Parliament building

How will you rate your liking of the new Parliament building?

The new Parliament building, which was inaugurated last year, appears to have been received well.

Voters who gave the best rating for the building are from the West, at 23 per cent. The second best rating came from the East, at 21 per cent.

The Excellent, Very Good, Good and Satisfactory options received most votes, while those who said they didn't like the building, or are indifferent to it, accounted for just over 20 per cent of the total respondents.

Question 5: Election issues

Which are the issues that will determine your voting intention in the Lok Sabha election?

Asked what would dictate their voting intention, most respondents said what matters are unemployment and inflation, at nearly 32 per cent each.

Whether or not Modi will continue to be the Prime Minister appears to the a key issue, too, with 26.5 per cent of of respondents saying they would give it a thought.

The most respondents who cited unemployment as an influencing factor are in the East, at 38 per cent. When it comes to price rise, it's an influencing factor in the North, with 33 per cent of respondents naming it as a key concern.

Methodology of survey

The pre-poll survey was conducted between November 2023 and January 2024 in 1,314 locations across 19 states. These were selected at random from 82 representative Lok Sabha constituencies.

The survey covered 35,905 eligible voters from different parts of the country.

For the purpose of the survey, the 19 states were divided into four zones:

North Zone: Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi

South Zone: Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Telangana

East Zone: Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal, Assam

West Zone: Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh

Eligible voters were selected at random from households. Personal door-step interviews were held with the aid of a structured questionnaire.

The questionnaires were given out in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Odia and Bengali.

The interviews were conducted by Apt’s team of interviewers under the supervision of its field supervisors.

In each of the 82 Lok Sabha constituencies, 400 respondents were interviewed. The responses collected from the voters were processed to arrive at the findings of the survey.