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A majority of the people of Tamil Nadu are of the view that Mrs Indira Gandhi should not have been imprisoned and expelled from the Parliament. Support for the Prime Minister Morarji Desai has gone down. More than sixty percent of the people either strongly support or have a good opinion of Chief Minister M. G. Ramachandran.

These are some of the main findings of a state-wide sample survey conducted during the last week of January 1979 by the students of the Department of Statistics of the Madras Christian College.

Mrs Gandhi's Imprisonment

Ninety percent of the people had heard of the punishment meted out to Mrs Indira Gandhi. Twenty-five percent of the respondents condemned very strongly the action taken against Mrs Indira Gandhi. In addition, another thirty percent said that she should not have been imprisoned and expelled from Parliament. On the other hand, sixteen percent expressed the view that she deserved the punishment and another four percent felt that she deserved even more severe punishment. Others had no strong opinion either way, or did not wish to discuss it.

Political Leaders

Chief Minister M. G. Ramachandran is still the most popular leader. A little over thirty percent strongly support him and this figure has remained unchanged for a year. An additional one-third of the people of Tamil Nadu have a good opinion of him. Compared to the figures collected a year ago, more people have a good opinion of him. Sixty-four percent of the people surveyed, either strongly support him or have a good opinion of him.

Only eight percent of the people strongly support Prime Minister Morarji Desai and another thirty-two percent have a good opinion of him. In January 1978, thirteen percent strongly supported him and another forty percent had a good opinion of him. Last year only twelve percent were opposed to him but now twenty-six percent are opposed to him. Seven percent have not heard of him.

Mr Charan Singh has hardly any strong supporters in Tamil Nadu and twenty-nine percent in our sample had not even heard of him. Mr Nedunchezhian has no strong supporters and about fifteen percent have not heard of him.

The position of Mr M. Karunanidhi has remained more or less the same. About seventeen percent strongly support him and in addition twenty-one percent have a good opinion of him. In contrast to this, forty-four percent are strongly opposed to him and this figure is a little higher than the 1978 figure of thirty-nine percent. Furthermore, more people are against him than against any other political leader.

Twenty-seven percent strongly support Mrs Indira Gandhi and this figure is significantly higher than the figure of twenty percent of strong support she had in January 1978. In addition, thirty-seven percent have a good opinion of her. In other words, sixty-four percent of the people either strongly support her or have a good opinion of her. Only twenty percent are opposed to her.

Political Parties

Taking only the committed supporters, AIADMK party is the most popular party with a strong support of thirty percent; Indira's Congress party comes next with twenty-six percent; the DMK comes third with seventeen percent and Janata with only eight percent. The communist parties together have a strong support of only about two percent.

Indira's Congress party has the largest percentage of sympathizers forming thirty-four percent of the sample. In our survey, sympathizers are those who may support more than one party and it shows the potential additional support for a given party. Taking both the strong supporters and sympathizers together Indira's Congress party has become as popular as the AIADMK. In fact the popularity of her party has grown significantly during the last one year. However, AIADMK has its largest support from the youngest age group of 21-30. In contrast to this, Mrs Indira Gandhi has her largest proportion of supporters in the older age group of 51-60.

There is a lot of regional variation between the districts. The greatest support comes to the AIADMK from the districts of Chingleput, North Arcot, South Arcot and Salem. The strongest support comes to Indira Congress from Dharmapuri district. To the DMK its strongest support is from Tirunelveli and. least support from Chingleput district.

Taking Madras city alone, about one-fourth strongly support AIADMK, another one-fourth Indira Congress, one-sixth support Janata and about another one-sixth the DMK.

About ninety students including about twenty women students, of the Department of Statistics of the Madras Christian College interviewed nearly 2000 adults chosen by random sampling methods from nearly 400 villages and towns spread all over Tamil Nadu. The data were processed by the students on the IBM 370/155 computer at the IIT, Madras.