Barak Bulletin analysis: Sushmita Dev to win one on one contest in Silchar

As Silchar goes to cast their vote just about 50 hours later here is what Barak Bulletin forecasts to be the result like. This analysis is done on the basis of opinion polls conducted in various Legislative Assembly Constituencies. We have followed the 2001 census data to understand the demography and sampled accordingly.

Before we get on to 2019 let’s have a look at the snapshot of a few previous elections:

There are close to 1,33,000 voters who would cast their votes for the first time. A total of 11,93,908 voters are eligible to vote in the upcoming elections which are up from 10,60,175 voters in 2009.

Our surveyors observed that it is very much a Modi versus Sushmita Dev debate between the young voters, especially among the first-timers. However, we did not produce a graph analysing the first-timer sentiment as the sample size was very small.

Here is a snapshot of the turnout in previous elections:

Notes:

In 1998, 78.68% of voters turned out voted for a change. Late Santosh Mohan Dev was defeated by Kabindra Purkayastha.

In 1999, the turnout was high too (73.52%), late Santosh Mohon Dev regained his MP seat by defeating BJP’s Kabindra Purkayastha.

In 2004, the turnout declined to 69.18%. Sontosh Mohan continued to remain the MP by defeating BJP’s Kabindra Purkayastha.

In 2009, the turnout increased again to 70.37%. BJP’s Kabindra Purkayastha defeated late Santosh Mohon Dev to become the MP for the second time.

In 2014, the turnout saw a significant increase – up by more than 5 per cent to 75.46%. Congress’ Sushmita Dev became MP for the first time by defeating BJP’s Kabindra Purkayastha.

Here is what happened in the last three elections:

2004 late Santosh Mohon Dev defeated BJP’s Kabindra Purkayastha, 2009 Purkayastha was elected as an MP from Silchar while in 2014 Sushmita Dev won the seat for her party.

Point to be noted here is that, others always played a significant role in deciding who becomes the MP from Silchar.

In fact, in 2009 others (parties except for BJP and Congress) fetched a cumulative vote share of 35.98% more than winning candidate’s 35.37%. AIUDF had the lion’s share in the other category.

If we break the others, in 2014, AIUDF candidate got 10.69% of the votes. In 2009, AIUDF’s Badaruddin Azmal came second with 29.35% votes and in 2004, the same party’s Anwar Hussain got 16.41% votes.

This year, our experts feel the votes won’t get divided as both AIUDF and CPIM decided against fielding any candidate from the constituency. The third most discussed name in this election is of NPP candidate Nazia Yasmin Mazumder. NPP is BJP’s ally in North East Democratic Alliance, but NPP chief and CM Meghalaya Conrad Sangma decided to contest independently in the Lok Sabha election, thus Nazia is contesting from Silchar. But, our experts believe that this was a plot from BJP to attempt a divide which they feel will not materialise.

Here is a snapshot of BJP’s performance in previous Lok Sabha elections:

Here is a snapshot of Congress’ performance in previous Lok Sabha elections:

In 2011, Sushmita Dev and Rajdeep Roy contested against each other in the Assembly elections and here is what happened:

Now, here are a few insights from our opinion polls in various Assembly constituencies:

Sonai:

Observations:

More than trust on Sushmita Dev it is hatred for Modi that is helping INC in this region.

Few respondents mentioned that Rajdeep Roy did not do enough to connect and communicate with the minority voters.

Few respondents said that Aminul Haque Laskar (MLA Sonai) should have been made a minister which did not happen and thus they feel BJP does not care about minority sentiments.

People had positive things to say about NPP candidate, Nazia Yasmin Mazumder, but most of them said that they don’t think she is ready to become an MP.

Silchar:

Please note: others here include ‘not sure’ too.

Observations:

Though most of the respondents spoke in favour of BJP and indicated they would vote for Rajdeep Roy, it was very much a Modi versus Sushmita Dev scenario on the ground.

Few even mentioned that it does not matters who the MP candidate is from BJP and that they will vote for Modi.

Respondents accused Sushmita Dev of ignoring Silchar and spending most of her time in Delhi.

Below we have clubbed responses garnered from various tea estates within Silchar MP constituency and here is what we find:

Overall prediction:

On the basis of the responses and on ground analysis done over a period of time, Barak Bulletin’s analysis is:

Considering a similar turnout as last year we estimate 8,95,431 voters to cast their votes on April 18. Of that, our estimate is that 48.76% of the participating voters will vote for Congress and Sushmita Dev, up from 42.07% in 2014. Going by this our prediction is she will get close to 4,36,612 votes up from 3,36,451 votes in 2014.

Rajdeep Roy, on the other hand, as per our prediction will be the first runner up from Silchar. Around 8,00,008 voters voted in 2014 elections of which 3,01,210 (37.66%) voters polled in favour of BJP candidate, Kabindra Purkayastha.

We estimate, this time 39.18% of the total participating voters to cast in favour of Rajdeep Roy, accordingly he is projected to get 3,50,829 votes in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections losing to Sushmita Dev by 85,783 votes. The margin of her victory over Kabindra Purkayastha last year was 35,241 votes.

Editor’s note:

A team of young college students, a few journalists, lawyers, bankers, and commerce graduates conducted the face-to-face survey and on the basis of that, the entire prediction is made. While it was not possible to conduct the survey at a large scale in each and every Assembly constituency we have tried cover the most we could.

We are not Chanakya or C-Voter, we are not psephologists with 50 years of experience. In fact, many of us, in this team were involved in an opinion poll survey or prediction for the first time. Since we are inexperienced, there is a margin of error that we would like our readers to take into consideration.

We will try and cover more areas in upcoming elections.