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New Delhi: After Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, Zee News has conducted an Opinion Poll to understand the electoral wave in Punjab ahead of Assembly Elections 2022. India’s most trusted channel has teamed up with DesignBoxed (a political campaign management company, that has a long experience of conducting pre-poll surveys) to ascertain the public opinion before the polls in Punjab, which are scheduled to be held in single-phase on February 20.
In the 2017 Punjab Assembly election, Congress had won 77 out of 117 total seats. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) came in second, winning 20 seats and forming the official opposition in Punjab, while Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alliance had managed to get 18 seats.
The state of Punjab is divided into three regions — Malwa, Majha and Doaba. These are not just geographically distinct but politically and culturally diverse as well. All three have their own distinct Punjabi dialects.
Majha (North West) also known as panthic belt has 25 Assembly seats and borders Pakistan and is home to Amritsar’s Golden Temple and Kartarpur Sahib Corridor. The Hindus here are concentrated in Amritsar and Pathankot.
The region has traditionally been partial to the Shiromani Akali Dal. However, in 2017, anger over sacrilege incidents had led to only two Akali leaders getting elected from here, one of them the controversial Bikram Majithia. AAP is yet to open its account here.
Majha prides itself on its warriors such as Baba Deep Singh, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, founder of the Sikh empire, and the famous general Hari Singh Nalwa, who tamed the Afghan tribals. Even today, people of the region are partial to firearms.
AAP set to make massive gain in Majha
In Majha region, AAP is expected to get 26% vote share, while Congress is projected to get 33% vote share, SAD 31%, BJP 6% and others just 4%.
Channi emerges as most preferred CM
In Punjab’s Majha region, a majority of the respondents, nearly 32% want Charanjit Singh Channi to head the next government. AAP’s Bhagwant Mann was in second position with 25% support.
The Zee News-DesignBoxed survey is one of the most accurate opinion polls in the country. Zee News-DesignBoxed reached out to people across 117 seats of poll-bound Punjab between December 5, 2021, to January 16, 2022. The survey was done among randomly selected eligible adults and asked people about the most important issue and the factors that would help reach a decision. The opinion poll also asked people about their preferred choice for the Chief Minister and how caste dynamics swayed the voting decision.
The Zee News-DesignBoxed would also emphasize that despite all precautions taken during the sample survey, a margin of +/-4% is always a possibility if we take into account the respondents’ deviation from the sample. Also, the numbers in the opinion poll are not the actual predictions but a projection based on a sample survey. This survey is the base for the Opinion poll and not actual results.
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