Bjp leader got gujarat poll prediction correct

When the Gujarat Assembly election results were announced, and the BJP got 99 seats, this writer was reminded of what a Delhi BJP leader, Dushyant Chopra (53) had said in mid-November: “The BJP may get 98 seats in Gujarat.” Chopra’s company, Drishtikone Media, is a new entrant in the field of political surveys and election management. A hardcore BJP man, he has served as a member of the national executive of the BJP youth wing and as member of the BJP’s central election management and logistic committee for a long time. He looked after the management of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Hologram Meetings” during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. He has also taken an active part in BJP’s different state Assembly election campaigns.

In January, he formed a group of young professionals who were into political surveys. They jointly worked in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections.

They carried out specific constituency surveys for several candidates belonging to different parties. “For Gujarat elections, we started our research work in August. As we had limited resources and no political backing, we started work with a team of 50 youngsters pursuing their mass communication courses from different institutions in Delhi,” says Chopra.

Five teams of 10 people each were made. Three teams concentrated in major cities like Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Bhavnagar and Rajkot, and two teams spread out in rural and tribal areas.

In September-November, these surveyors covered nearly 160 Assembly segments and met 77,000 people. “We discovered that the BJP was losing ground among Patels and the rural and tribal belts. But despite GST and demonetisation hardships, the urban Gujarati was backing Modi,” points out Chopra.

“We gave 98 seats to the BJP and 76 to 84 seats to the Congress in November’s last week,” says Chopra.

“It was only the Modi factor which saved the BJP from losing Gujarat,” says Chopra.