The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has launched a survey at grassroots level for sensing voter preferences and setting a campaign roadmap for the coming Lok Sabha (LS) elections.
Party sources told The Hindu that a battery of workers had been engaged to visit houses, meet voters and elicit their views on socio-political, religious, cultural and other issues that were likely to impinge on the people and influence the poll outcome. The exercise was likely to be completed by the first week of March when the party and the front settle down for finalising candidates and campaign issues, the sources said.
Multiple issues
Starting from the poll promises delivered by the National Democratic Alliance during the previous Lok Sabha elections, demonetisation, price hike of petrol and diesel, its impact on the prices of essential items, flaws in economic policies, agrarian distress, a voter evaluation of the Central assistance for post-flood rebuilding, and all other issues that have bearing on the voters would be flagged to seek their responses, sources said.
Though the party machinery routinely takes stock of the ground situation ahead of all elections as part of the poll roll verification, the current survey assumes significance in the wake of a number of similar exercises that have already been conducted and predicted that religious and allied issues would gain an upper hand and political issues have been pushed to the back-burner.
The party machinery has initiated the process of calling on voters and seeking their views on all vital issues, including Sabarimala, the performance of the Central government and also the State government.
Extensive survey
Compared to other similar exercises, the CPI(M) survey would be more extensive and would reach out to the maximum number of voters, including first-time voters, across the State.
Pre-poll predictions
The party leadership has said that it will not be miffed at pre-poll predictions and will have its own assessments while gearing up for the elections.
The survey outcome would provide the CPI(M) and the Left Democratic Front sufficient inputs in candidate selection, prioritising issues and setting the tone and tenor of the campaign.
