One-third of voters believe caste, religion still matters

Bengaluru: A survey conducted by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Daksh on voter perception shows that despite a general thumbs-up for chief minister Siddaramaiah’s populist schemes, the 2018 elections may well be decided on the caste and religion of candidates.
As per the report, 37% of the people sampled consider religion an important factor while 36% believe the caste of candidate will reel in the votes. The report also said 42% considered a chief ministerial aspirant as the deciding factor while 67% of respondents backed a candidate for the party they belong to.

While the report may augur well for BJP state president BS Yeddyurappa, who is trying to consolidate the Lingayat votes despite the controversy within the community over a minority tag, and for H D Kumaraswamy, who is trying to project himself as the most accessible chief minister, the report also shows that people were quite happy with Siddaramaiah’s populist schemes.

Around 79% of voters sampled were appreciative of Siddaramaiah’s flagship scheme, Anna Bhagya, with 64% respondents happy with the Anila Bhagya (free gas connection) scheme. On the downside, two major schemes, Shaadi Bhagya and Indira Canteen, were rejected by the people.

While 36% of respondents said they were unhappy with the Indira Canteens, 33% said they were not availing its benefits. Only 31% expressed their happiness about it.

For Shaadi Bhagya scheme, in which minority community women are provided financial assistance, 45% of those surveyed said they were unhappy with it. Another 40% said they didn’t even use it.

The Siddaramaiah government was given good feedback by respondents with regard providing better roads and better environment protection schemes. Both schemes received a score of 7.8 out of 10.

The worst score was given to the Siddaramaiah regime for being unable to eradicate corruption and providing better employment opportunities. The respondents gave a score of only 6.67 and 6.70 respectively.

Methodology

ADR and Daksh survey sampled 13,244 people from 224 constituencies between December 2017 and January 2018. The maximum income group was between Rs 10,0001 and 25,000 per annum, while the minimum number of participants were from above Rs 10 lakh income group with 0.2% of the sample size. The survey took the maximum opinion between the age group of 31 years and 45 years. While 67.4% of those samples were men, 32.6% were women. Also, 85% of the sample size were Hindus.