Is Modi’s closest rival Hazare? 5 things wrong with Pew survey

The BJP and its Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi have had a lot to cheer with every opinion poll, but the latest Pew Research Centre poll paints by far the rosiest picture of the party's performance in the upcoming national elections.

With 63 percent of the respondents preferring the BJP, and Modi enjoying the highest popularity rating among all leaders, it seems like a good reason to bring out the bubbly for the party ahead of the polls.

However, a closer look at the poll reveals a number of strange anomalies that raise questions about the survey results:

Modi should wait another 2 months to celebrate: PTI

The missing regional parties: At a time when regional satraps like AIADMK chief Jayalalithaa and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav are nursing valid ambitions of finding themselves in the Prime Minister's chair, the Pew Research poll ignores their presence completely. Pew instead treats the Indian election much like a two-party US presidential face-off between the Congress and BJP.

Coalition partners, which have been a necessity for the Congress and BJP since the 1990s, are blanketed together as 'other parties' which greatly underestimate their power and unfortunately also throws up a picture that is inaccurate. Unlike the United States, India's multi-party system is all about seat share, and therefore regional community or caste-based vote banks have an enormous influence on who forms the government at the Centre. Therefore, a poll that doesn't offer seat predictions -- which would require factoring in regional parties -- is at best incomplete, and does little to tell us about the final outcome.

BJP more popular in Tamil Nadu than Gujarat: The Pew poll throws up the oddest results for the BJP, when assessing its popularity across the country. The BJP is expectedly popular in the North (74 percent) but in the West -- Gujarat, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh, two of which are BJP ruled states -- it enjoys a mere 54 percent support. In fact, the BJP's numbers are the lowest in its stronghold, i.e. the West, lower than even its biggest achilles heel, i.e. the South (59 percent) where it has lost Karnataka and has virtually no presence in Andhra Pradesh or Tamil Nadu.

This bizarre spread is again a consequence of ignoring regional parties whose absence throws up misleading numbers.

Anna Hazare: The biggest surprise in the list of favourable candidates in this election is the strong showing by septugenarian anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare. Enjoying the second highest rating after Narendra Modi, Hazare outdoes any political personality from the Congress. In a government that has abysmal ratings, it comes as no surprise that none of their star personalities are not viewed in the best light.

But personal popularity is hardly an indication of the political fortune of our leaders who would likely do as poorly if compared to a cricket player or Bollywood actor. Anna may be popular, but not many would vote for him for Prime Minister if he were to run for the highest office.

Arvind Kejriwal: Where in the world is Arvind Kejriwal? It is inexplicable that a poll conducted between December and January completely ignored the newest power player on the Indian political scene. And why would Pew choose to poll Indians on Anna -- who will be limited to supporting Mamata Bannerjee in 2014 -- and exclude Kejriwal whose party intends to contest the LS elections?

The AAP doesn't have a national presence yet but are quite likely to make its influence felt in this election, eating into the tally of the Congress and BJP wherever it contests. It's image may have been dented by its abdication of the Delhi administration but it would be premature to write them off completely -- more as a possible spoiler for whichever alliance comes to power at the Centre.

Ignoring caste, community: We may decry it and call it retrograde, but voting along caste and community lines is a very real part of our election system. For better or worse, they are an excellent predictor of voting behaviour at the constituency level -- and more so than personal preferences for one national leader or the other. Interviewing 2,000-plus people without tracking their community or caste identities will tell us very little about how they will vote come election day.

That said, while the Pew poll is indeed shaky, BJP's approval ratings are still good news, especially as an affirmation of Modi's growing popularity across income groups, gender and geography. But they should probably wait a little longer -- say two months -- before they order up the champagne.