As the election campaign reached fever pitch in Delhi, a pre-poll survey commissioned by the Aam Aadmi Party predicted a landslide for the party in the Assembly elections. Its leader Arvind Kejriwal emerged the favourite chief ministerial candidate, notching up 53 per cent of votes against 34 per cent for the BJP’s Kiran Bedi.
The survey said the AAP was likely to win 51 of the 70 seats in the Delhi Assembly. The BJP might win 15 seats while the Congress and others would get four seats.
Dismissing the AAP findings for its small sample size, BJP sources claimed that their party would win 43 seats. They said their internal survey had indicated that the party would win anything between 41 and 43 seats.
Quick to respond, AAP leader and noted psephologist Yogendra Yadav said: “Ours is the standard sample size. What matters is not so much the size beyond a minimum but the representativeness of the respondents. Let the BJP make its findings public and share the raw data.”
Making the AAP findings public, Mr. Yadav said the party was likely to get 46 per cent of the vote share while the BJP would get 33 per cent and the Congress 11 per cent. Others may get a vote share of 10 per cent, he said.
