Perception of

Politics or
Politics of
Perception?
Authored by :
Rishika Sharma
Rohit Bhartiya
© Absolutdata 2019 Proprietary and Confidential
 There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between
are the doors of perception
-Aldous Huxley

With a landmark win of 325 parliamentary seats in the 2014 elections, Narendra Modi led
NDA paved way for a huge victory, a scale that no one imagined when they were fighting
the elections. The multitude of campaigns and promised initiatives struck a chord
with the voters and led to a Modi wave which translated well in terms of the
number of votes.
The win, was touted as a powerful indicator of the dwindling
faith in UPA, and people found the Modi led NDA to be a
breath of fresh air. The overall political wave of the
country had changed with this voter split and
overwhelming victory.
The next 4 years saw many initiatives from
the government (e.g. Demonetization,
GST, Swachh Bharath, Make in
India, Jan Dhan Yojana etc.)
working towards the promises made.
But was NDA able to bring “Achhe din”
for the masses?
The scenario at this point in time, makes for an
interesting probe into the existing perceptions in the
minds of the people, based on experiencing NDA and
UPA both, in the last 10 years; the perception of the parties
across various key improvement areas for the country and
towards their leaders.

© Absolutdata 2019 Proprietary and Confidential

Study Sample Summary

National voter survey: Mix of age groups and 4 major cities

Sampling methodology and quotas :
After a thorough study among more than 1000 respondents, cutting across age groups, gender
and spanning 4 key cities of the country (Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Mumbai), we analyzed
their perceptions across 10 key parameters. We leveraged the in- house panel of
Absolutdata, Indiaspeaks, for our study. To keep the sample as representative of the
population as possible, our sample can be broken down as follows across key cuts
Overall sample size of the study post respondent level data cleaning: 1043

18- 28 years 29- 40 years 41- 50 years 50+years

Age
45% 41% 10% 4%

Male Female
Gender
62% 38%

City quota
Delhi
Kolkata 25% Bangalore
Mumbai

The methodology for carrying out this perception study was kept very realistic from a data
collection perspective. The respondent is asked to rate 10 key parameters across their
overall impact, the initiatives taken by NDA/ UPA, and the implementation of those
initiatives. Rating the above for NDA, is easy, due to a high recency factor. For UPA, the
question was asked innovatively with the respondent being told to imagine a scenario
wherein UPA comes to power, and then rate their expected performance across the
parameters accordingly.
The respondents were also asked to choose potential prime minister candidate from a list of
prominent political figures in the country at this point in time.

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The overall results achieved

The NaMO wave, is evident and powerfully outnumbers its opponents.

Potential prime minister candidate

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The all- important ‘vote’

18%

17%

65%

NDA UPA NOTA

When asked about who will you vote for in the current general elections, NDA has
emerged as the clear winner with 65% saying they will vote for NDA vs. only 17%
voting for UPA. The trend is consistent across all cities. A massive 69% see Modi as the
best prime ministerial candidate for the country with only 10% and 5% favoring Rahul
Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi respectively. Interestingly, both Mamta Banerjee and
Arvind Kejriwal managed a 4% support as potential prime minister candidates, which
indicates some degree of regional support.
It is a safe conclusion to make that most of the NDA voters are driven by the Modi
wave.

© Absolutdata 2019 Proprietary and Confidential

Overall Performance on each Parameter

Has the current government delivered on their

promises made in their manifesto?

50%
33%
18%

YES NO NOT SURE

With 50% of our study’s respondents indicating that NDA has met their promises, a strong
NDA wave is evident.

Respondents were asked to rate NDA’s performance in the last 4 years and UPA’s expected
future performance on 10 parameters on three different levels. 1. Overall 2. Initiatives 3.
Implementation of the initiatives.

A key driver analysis of the 10 parameters was done to understand what are the most
important factors that push a voter to incline towards a party. The most important
factors in order of importance are Economy, Corruption, education, Sanitation and
Access to basic amenities (water supply, food, electricity). A close mapping of the above
parameters with data available in the public domain unfolded stories that not only supplement
the high/ low perception scores for a certain parameter but also substantiate the overall voting
decision made by the “Aam Aadmi” of this country.

The overall perception of NDA is bolstered by various parameters and has consistently
outperformed UPA on all 10 of them. It has a significantly high perception than UPA on
corruption, economy, sanitation and infrastructure.

© Absolutdata 2019 Proprietary and Confidential

 Top 5 parameters' importance scores

20% 18% 16%

13% 12%

Economic Access to basic

Development Corruption Sanitation amenities (Water Education
supply, electricity, food)

57% 57% 54% 53% 52% 49% 49% 47%

37% 40% 38%
28% 33% 32% 31% 31% 29% 29% 31%
27%

Sanitation Education Healthcare Economic Poverty

Development

Infrastructure Basic Corruption Safety Jobs and

amenities employment

NDA UPA

All parameters in decreasing order of their positive perception %

© Absolutdata 2019 Proprietary and Confidential

 Top 5 parameter's positive perception %

57% 53% 54%

49% 49%
32% 37%
31% 27% 28%

Economic Corruption Sanitation Basic Education

Development amenities

NDA UPA

Economy as a leading parameter : Economically in a good place

Economy is the most critical parameter for a voter to choose a party. With a positive perception of
49%, NDA has a strong edge over UPA on economy with only 31% positive perception.

The initiatives launched by the NDA and their overall implementation for economic development is
57% and 46% respectively according to our study results, which is significantly above the UPA
scores of 28% for both initiatives taken and implementation.

Crude oil prices were falling globally when Mr. Modi came to power. This state of affairs has
changed a little in the last few months when the oil prices have risen sharply. But, a consistent fall in
commodity prices globally has ensured a much more stable economy for the Modi let NDA.

The NDA government also registered a higher compounded annual growth rate as far as Per Capita
Growth is concerned. The overall GDP also registered a sharp increase as Modi government took
over, registering a significant YOY growth and registering a Per Capita Growth of 78,000 INR in
FY’10 to 1,04,000 INR in FY’19. The YOY also went up from 4.90 % in FY’10 to 7.5% in FY’19.

Adding to this, an increased FDI inflow to the tune of 50%, when benchmarked against UPA, has
also helped NDA gain a strong foothold as far as the economic parameters are concerned.

© Absolutdata 2019 Proprietary and Confidential

‘Eliminating Corruption’ as a leading driver : The party with the difference

Do you think that 'Demonetisation' met its objectives?

Demonetisation 52%

Eliminating corruption has been another strong area for NDA with a positive perception
of 49%. With UPA at a positive perception of just 27% and this being its lowest positive
perception across the 10 macro parameters tested in the study, NDA certainly established
itself as a much better political choice.
Corruption and public scams often become an important yardstick to measure public
perception with respect to the current government in power. With UPA-1 and UPA-2, the
overall rate of public scams/ corruption related news was increasingly rampant and
spread across 10 years of their tenure. Scams like 2G allotment, CWG scam, Satyam
scam, Cash for votes scam and Adarsh scam, etc, lead to widespread public distrust.
Several of these scams are pegged at astounding figures like Rs. 1.76 trillion for the 2G
spectrum scam. So alongside public trust, UPA rule’s policy paralysis also costed them
some economic stability.
This wave of scams became a cornerstone for NDA’s campaigning efforts and they
constantly attempted to position themselves as “The party with a difference”.

NDA has had a relatively clean public record as far as scams involving corporate and
government entities is concerned. Adding to the above, schemes like demonetization and
direct benefits transfer, have further bolstered the party’s overall image in terms of
reducing corruption and directing initiatives towards eliminating middle men so that
poor can benefit from direct transfer of subsidies in their bank accounts (Jan Dhan Yojna
and Direct Benefits Transfer). With 33.36 lakh people covered under the Jan Dhan Yojna
and the Government estimates indicating an overall savings of 82,985 crore, attributed to
the direct benefits transfer, the statistics are certainly a notch above the traditional PDS
(Public distribution system).

© Absolutdata 2019 Proprietary and Confidential

Sanitation : Swachh Bharat Abhiyan did lead to ache din!

Do you think that 'Swachh Bharat Abhiyan' met its objectives?

Swacch Bharat
80%
Abhiyan

NDA managed to infuse a new lease of life into all campaigns related to sanitation and
cleanliness. UPA had its own set of campaigns around addressing the above mentioned
parameters like ‘Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan’ and multiple initiatives for an annual
cleanliness drive to address major rivers like the Ganges. But no significant statistic
made its way into the public domain and the initiatives were not publicized well. Swachh
Bharat on the other hand is believed to be a successful initiative by 80% of the voters.
The highest positive perception
score for NDA was for this
parameter, which is a massive
59%, followed by the initiatives
taken score of 59% and their
implementation score at 46%. This
indicates a strong foothold as far
as the impact of the NDA
initiatives to address sanitation are
concerned.

The Swachh Bharat Mission and some grassroot level stats for NDA are too good to be
true. The biggest such feat is that now we have 27 out of 36 ODF (open defecation) free
states and union territories. Adding to this, independent studies conducted by RICE
(Research institute for compassionate economics) also indicate a rise in access to toilets
as far the rural households of the country is concerned. 71% of the rural population in
states like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan own a latrine, and when
benchmarked against a mere 34% back in 2014, is a marked improvement.

© Absolutdata 2019 Proprietary and Confidential

Access to Basic Amenities : Saubhagya Yojna se Ache din tak!

NDA has again managed to outperform UPA on access to basic amenities with 53%
in favor of NDA vs just 23% satisfied with UPA’s performance. The initiatives taken
by NDA have a positive perception of 48% closely followed by an implementation
score of 45%.
A lion’s share of electrification (a whopping 97%, as the UPA-II had carried out the
electrification of 80,189 villages and UPA-I 52,611 villages*) as far basic electricity
connections is concerned, was already carried out in the combined tenures of UPA-1
and UPA-2. But, the NDA managed to reach the 100% mark. The quality of
electricity, considering the current state of discoms is another matter of concern all
together. But, NDA’s electrification initiatives for 20, 910 villages, some including
very remote villages of the country, and reaching the 100% feat, greatly
influenced their public perception.* Central electricity authority

Water in the rural areas of the country has been a prized resource and
access to clean drinking water was a distant dream for 163million
Indian homes in 2015 (statistic by Wateraid, an NGO
focussed on solving issues related to clean water supply at a
grassroots). The national rural drinking water program, launched
in 2009 by UPA- II, allocates funds at a state government level to build
infrastructure for supply of clean water (broadly for cooking, cleaning
and sanitation needs).

But, NDA surprisingly slashed the share of budget diverted to

this initiative. In 2014- 15, only 0.6% of the budget was allocated to the initiative and further
dropped to a measly 0.2% in 2018- 19.
Adding to this, spends on rural drinking water supply were also reduced. A large portion of
the budget, i.e. 72% is now allocated to Swacch Bharat Abhiyan, which aims to address
sanitation related issues. But clean water supply and sanitation go hand in hand. This is one of
those very crucial issues that need to be solved, as only 18.9% of rural households have a
functional water supply system in 2018-19, and as opposed to the promise of reaching 80%
households by 2020, the issue is of critical importance and political value.

© Absolutdata 2019 Proprietary and Confidential

Education : Beti bachao, Beti Padhao

Do you think that 'Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao' met its objectives?

Beti Bachao
74%
Beti Padhao

With 74% of the respondents believing that ‘Beti bachao, beti padhao’ met its
objective, NDA has 54% positive votes when it comes to education. UPA has a score
of 37% which is also its highest across all parameters.

No active role
towards addressing
the promise to
make education
command a GDP
spending of 6%
lead to several
proposals but no
concrete steps
addressing it.

Beti bachao, Beti Padhao Andolan can be deemed a successful start, with 640
districts of the country, that have a low sex ratio, being reached by multiple programs
under the initiative. Interestingly though, 56% of the funds allocated under the
scheme from 2015-19, were diverted towards media and marketing related activities.
Only 25% of the funds were disbursed to districts and states.
The HRD ministry garnered great praise and welcome nods for its initiatives like the
IIM act (to reduce government control over management schools), a robust higher
education funding agency and reviving class 10th board exams.

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Infrastructure : Thumbs up for better connectivity

It’s been a good tenure for the NDA in terms of roads, railways and waterways
infrastructural developments. The construction of roadways touched the 28,000 km mark
in 2014-18, as compared to 19,443 Km in 2010-14. The traffic handling capacities of the
ports also increased from 550 million tonnes (2014) to 679 million tonnes (2018). The
sagarmala (ports) scheme and Bharatmala (roads) scheme have been pegged at very high
outlays in terms of capital investments, amounting to Rs.18 trillion, one of the highest in
the world. There are several initiatives in place to address air traffic concerns and
improving regional connectivity (UDAN- Ude Desh ka Aam Nagarik scheme with fares
starting at Rs.2500) with the construction of new airports and boosting existing airport
capacities.
This also gets reflected in NDA’s positive perception of 57%, a massive score, and the
3rd highest when compared with the other 9 macro- parameters. This, when compared to
UPA’s perception score of 33%, is a marked increase. This gap gets reflected in the
initiative and implementation scores as well. While NDA has a initiative score of 54%
and 51%, UPA has a score of 31% and 29% respectively, which is quite low.

Poverty, Safety, healthcare, Jobs and employment : The bottom 4

NDA v/s UPA- Bottom 4 parameters

44% 42% 49% 44%

40% 37% 43%
36%
29% 27% 27% 27% 29% 29% 30% 29%

Eradicate Ensure Healthcare Jobs and

Poverty Safety employment

UPA-Initiatives NDA-Initiative

UPA-Implementation NDA-Implementation

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As is evident, the margin between the positive perceptions reduces between NDA and
UPA, as opposed to the top 6 parameters, wherein NDA was significantly higher than
UPA and the impact was visible and corroborated through secondary data gathered
across initiatives launched and their impacts. In fact, for certain parameters like safety
and jobs, UPA performed better than NDA, as far as the data in the public domain
about their tenure is concerned.

Poverty: A shocking phenomenon emerged with the National crime records bureau
not publishing farmer suicide data for 2016- 17. Interestingly, this happened in times
when March 2018 saw over 30,000 farmers and tribals marching from Nashik to
Mumbai, demanding a solution to the various issues around fair crop prices and
mounting loans. In a nutshell, both NDA and UPA failed to curb farmer suicides and
work towards concrete steps to resolve the issues faced by them. This is reflected in the
perception scores for both NDA and UPA which are among the lowest. Also, data of the
Mahatma Gandhi Rural employment scheme is another disappointment, with just 50.2
million households covered under the same in 2018, a marginal increase over the 50.1
million households in 2014.

Safety: Individual safety was also at stake in the NDA tenure with reportings of
lynchings related to ‘cow vigilantes’, ‘Whatsapp fake news inspired mobs’ and ‘hate
crimes’. With 24 persons killed in mob attacks in 2018 and a 4.5 times rise in such
incidents from 2017 were a few stats that point towards a dangerous shift in the law and
order. With no significant initiative from NDA’s end to address these crimes and help
the legal system of the country tackle them, the government’s overall role is in a rough
spot here.
With almost half the respondents feeling that the government couldn’t control attacks
on minorities and communalism, safety indeed was a concern and needed to be
addressed strategically.

Has the government been able to control communalism?

Communalism 49%

© Absolutdata 2019 Proprietary and Confidential

Healthcare: The government proposed to bring 40% of the population (>100 million
poor households) under a free Rs. 5 lakh worth of ‘medicare’, which could’ve been a
gamechanger had it been implemented in this term. But as of now, this is just a
documented proposal. But, initiatives like free medication through Jan Aushadhi
Kendras were the saving grace here.
Jobs and employment : A leaked NSSO report about job creation and related stats in
the last few years says it all! An unemployment rate of 6.1%, as compared to 2.2%
(UPA-I) and 2% (UPA- II) is alarming for an economy like ours with a large job seeking
population and a whopping 4.75 million individuals joining the job market every year.

Insights across interesting specifics :

The curious case of the Urdu speaking voter :

Has the government been able to control communalism?

Communalism 15%

Positive perception scores for Urdu speaking voters

43% 41% 39% 43%

37%
28% 31% 35% 31% 33% 28% 31% 35% 33%
26% 26% 22% 20% 19% 15%

Sanitation Infrastructur Education Safety Economic

e Development

Healthcare Basic Corruption Poverty Jobs

amenities

NDA UPA

© Absolutdata 2019 Proprietary and Confidential

 Potential prime minister candidate

With Rahul Gandhi leading the race for prime minister here, UPA leading the positive
perception scores on 8 out of 10 parameters and just 15% voters from our Urdu speaking
sample agreeing that the government’s initiatives to tackle communalism are effective, this
is one vote bank that may not be supportive of NDA and jeopardize NDA’s plans of a
roaring majority in constituencies with a large Urdu speaking population

Across states, NDA it is? Perhaps not!

Delhi and Kolkata, are not as pro NDA, as Bangalore and Mumbai. It may’ve to do with
the fact that both Delhi and Kolkata have not experienced particularly eventful stints of
the NDA/ BJP and have not developed as strong perceptions as Bangalore and Mumbai
basis the national performance of NDA.

Positive Perception for NDA across states*

60 61 62 61 62
54 51 56 52 55 57 55
52 49 50 46 50 53
47 45
53 49 50 50 50 54 53 50 51
4139 4244 39 45 41 43
35 36 33

Education Jobs and Healthcare Eradicate Eliminate Ensure Economic Access to basic Infrastructure Cleanliness
Employment Poverty Corruption Safety Development amenities (roads, and sanitation
railways etc)
*The numbers in the graph are in %

Delhi Bangalore

Mumbai Kolkata

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 Also, the fact that Kolkata and Delhi have governments led by prominent political leaders,
namely Mamta Banerjee and Arvind Kejriwal, who have strong voter bases, and
interestingly, are not NDA supporters, both verbally and otherwise, may’ve something to
do with these low perception scores.

Age and political preferences : Is Rahul Gandhi ‘the youth icon’?

UPA: Perception across age groups*

39 38
36 35 35 34 34 36 36 36 35
33 33 33 31 33 33
31 30 28 28 30 28 31 30 30 32
27 28 28 26 27 27 28
24 24 26 23 25
22

Education Jobs and Healthcare Eradicate Eliminate Ensure Economic Access to basic Infrastructure Cleanliness
Employment Poverty Corruption Safety Development amenities (roads, and sanitation
railways etc)
*The numbers in the graph are in %

18-28 years 41-50 years

29-40 years 51+ years

NDA: Perception across age groups*

56 55 54 53 49 55 52 52 57 57 61 57 57 60
50 5152 48 50 51
4242
47 46 48 50 44 44
36 38 3939 38 39 36
31 33
28 28
18

Education Jobs and Healthcare Eradicate Eliminate Ensure Economic Access to basic Infrastructure Cleanliness
Employment Poverty Corruption Safety Development amenities (roads, and sanitation
railways etc)
*The numbers in the graph are in %

18-28 years 41-50 years

29-40 years 51+ years

© Absolutdata 2019 Proprietary and Confidential

UPA’s positive perceptions are driven by 18- 28 year old respondents, when compared
against the other age groups. A possible reason for this support can stem from NDA’s lack of
initiatives to tackle rising unemployment. This also, hints towards a certain degree of
support towards Rahul Gandhi and his positioning as a youth icon. The quantum of
difference between the positive perception of 18- 28 age group for NDA and UPA, is the
least as compared to the other age groups, indicating that NDA has a low appeal amongst the
youth.
Interestingly, 29- 40 and 41- 50 age groups have a much more pro- NDA perception, which
hints towards a affinity for the party’s initiatives and imagery created over 5 years of their
leadership, while those aged 51+ still have a more positive perception towards UPA on a few
parameters.

Sources
https://www.livemint.com/Politics/8NCB9LKlgS9BRsToQV57PI/Three-years-of-Modi-government-
A-report-card.html
http://www.makeinindia.com/article/-/v/make-in-india-reason-vision-for-the-initiative
https://www.msde.gov.in/assets/images/latest%20news/MSDE%20Release_June6.pdf
https://wcd.nic.in/sites/default/files/Final%20BBBP_Innovations%20under%20for%20web_2.pdf

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