Madhya Pradesh prefers health & jobs over army

A survey by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) conducted in the run-up to Madhya Pradesh elections has thrown up startling results about voters' preferences indicating that many politicians and media outlets are unaware of the real issues and just beat around the bush.

The survey, based on 15,000 responses across all constituencies of the state, emphasises that emotive issues of terrorism, strong presence of military and corruption do not drive voters as much as employment, better price for farm produce and basic issues of governance such as healthcare, traffic, electricity, education and better roads do.

In fact, issues of corruption, terrorism, military, encroachment on public land etc came at the bottom of preferences for both rural and urban respondents.

Better employment opportunities emerged as the most important issue with 70 per cent urban and 59 per cent rural respondents giving it top priority. Interestingly, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Skill India does not find much traction as only 4 per cent rural and 9 per cent urban respondents consider training for jobs an issue.

In rural areas, higher price for farm produce and electricity for agriculture clocked second and third most important priorities with 56 per cent and 40 per cent focusing on these. Other priority issues were subsidy for seeds, fertilisers, water and loan availability.

Then came better roads, better public transport, drinking water and empowerment of women and their security. Better garbage clearance, eradication of corruption came up as minor issues. People were least bothered about terrorism, encroachment of public land, strong military with only 4 per cent, 1 per cent and 3 per cent voting for them respectively.

In urban areas, after employment, the most important issues on second and third place were better hospitals (45%) and better law and order (41%). Infrastructure and governance issues like traffic congestion (36%), better roads (31%), facility for cyclists and pedestrians (30%), public transport (26%) came up at fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh positions.

Other important issues were pollution-based - noise pollution, water and air pollution and mining/quarrying'. About 20% of the urban respondents considered empowerment of women and their safety as a problem. Respondents voted strong military, terrorism and encroachment of public lands as the least important issues with only 6%, 3% and 2% of the voting for them respectively.

Interestingly, ousted Shivraj Singh government performed pretty good in the rural sector on agricultural front. On a scale of 5 it scored 4.51 in agriculture loan availability, 4.28 in electricity and 3.94 for agriculture subsidy for seeds/fertilisers.

The score was also good in better law and order (3.71) and availability of water for agriculture come in next with an average score of 3.71 and 3.60 respectively. Empowerment of women and their security was average at 2.75. The worst sectors were water pollution, drinking water, encroachment of public land and reservation for jobs and education with the average score of 1.61, 1.58, 1.06 and 1.01 respectively.

In urban sector, BJP government performance was best in better hospitals, law and order, roads and public transport with respective average scores of 3.98, 3.85, 3.74 and 3.67. Electricity for domestic use scored an average of 3.50 while drinking water (2.11) and empowerment of women and security (2.59) performed relatively poor .

The worst performed sectors were subsidized food distribution, lower food prices for consumers, garbage clearance and reservation for jobs and education with respective average scores of 1.98, 1.94, 1.73 and 1.06.

Interesting Finds

• The ADR survey took account of 15,000 responses from across all constituencies of the state. 
• It found that, unlike issues like terrorism, strong military, they preferred jobs, better price of farm produce. 
• Issues of corruption, terrorism, which were the poll planks of leaders, were at the bottom of the list. 
• The ousted BJP government was reported to have done good on the agricultural front with a score of 4.51 out of 5.