THE QUESTIONS
After the results of the final rounds of opinion polls of some major agencies on February 3..
1. Narendra Modi says we will
prove the pre-poll surveys wrong by winning Delhi. On the same day, February 4,
a day after the final round of many opinion polls gave Aam Aadmi Party a clear
majority, Venkaiah Naidu says 'Delhi polls not a referendum on Modi
government's performance'. First signs of growing realization within Bhartiya
Janata Party that it may not yet again form the government in Delhi?
2. Is there really a positive
swing for AAP in the Delhi assembly polls?
3. BJP was ahead in pre-poll
projections in December and January. If so, what changed from January to
February?
4. BJP was clearly ahead in
December round of pre-poll surveys. It led even many of January surveys. But in
the final round of surveys in February, AAP is way ahead and is projected to get clear
majority, building on the gains that it made in late January surveys. Did BJP
fail in gauging moods to fine tune its campaigning strategy?
5. Does Delhi's voters' profile -
largely made of poor, middle class and youth - along with Muslims - restricted
in a limited geographical stretch of high population density having thus greater
information access on developments happening in real time - make it possible
for this rapid change, thus making it acceptable to us by the goings of the
moment?
6. What happened in January that
BJP started slipping so rapidly?
7. Why did BJP fail to capitalize
on Arvind Kejriwal's 'deserter act' that left Delhi without a government for a
year when he resigned just after 49 days in office with a clearly lame reason,
or no reason at all - the central theme of the campaigning of Kejriwal's
opponents?
8. Or the 'deserter act' was
blown out of proportion given the fact that AAP had registered an increase in its
vote share in Delhi in Lok Sabha polls from its assembly polls performance in
December 2013?
9. Was para-dropping Kiran Bedi
just 22 days before the polls was too little, too late to take on a CM
candidate, Arvind Kejriwal, who remained the first choice of majority of voters
for CM even when BJP was being projected to win Delhi - in earlier rounds of
opinion polls?
10. Was para-dropping Kiran Bedi,
an outsider, a tactical blunder that alienated BJP's Delhi leadership and local
party workers?
11. BJP began its campaigning in
a negative mode, focusing on targeting AAP and Kejriwal while the development
related promises were pushed to periphery. With time, it got louder. Has that
harmed BJP, helping thus AAP and Arvind Kejriwal?
12. What role did the BJP's
conditional campaign or campaign focusing heavily on a conditional proposition
play in BJP's dull show - that the voters should vote for BJP if they have see
a developed Delhi as it would facilitate the coordination between union
government and the government in Delhi? Did they refuse to buy it in the
world's largest democracy?