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Public opinion surveys are conducted in many democratic countries to assess the opinion of the people on issues of national and social importance. Such polls are meaningless if people do not have freedom of speech and expression. In the United States there are three major organizations which conduct nation-wide polls. Results of the Gallup poll, the Harris poll and the University of Michigan poll are regularly published in leading newspapers.

In our country more and more surveys are now conducted by professional organizations but the results are not often published in newspapers. However, the results presented in this article appeared in the Madras Mail of February 22, and a few Tamil dailies who found it advantageous to publish such findings.

Students of the Department of Statistics have so far conducted three state-wide public opinion surveys, starting with the pre-election survey of 1971. Our results were much better than the haphazard guesses of many newspaper correspondents and political observers. This year we could not organize a state-wide survey but confined our attention to the three constituencies of Madras city. By the time this article appears, the elections will be over, but still we hope that this will be of sufficient interest to our readers.

The survey was conducted in Madras city during the period February 14-17, 1977, by the undergraduate students of the Department of Statistics. About forty studentsboth men and womenwho undertook the survey interviewed about one thousand carefully selected voters to find their opinion at the start of the election campaign in Madras city. We present here the main findings of the survey.

The results obtained in this survey are quite close to the results obtained for Madras city in a previous survey conducted by us last year just before the imposition of President's rule in Tamil Nadu.

Thirty-four per cent of the voters of Madras city strongly support the Congress party and in addition another fourteen per cent are its sympathisers. The Old Congress is strongly supported by twenty-one per cent of the voters and eighteen per cent are sympathetic towards that party.

The DMK party has the strong support of eighteen per cent of the voters of Madras city and the sympathy of another ten per cent. Thus the DMK and the Old Congress have the combined support of thirty-nine per cent. The AIADMK, led by the actor-politician Mr M. G. Ramachandran, has the strong support of ten per cent of the voters of Madras city in addition to the sympathy of seven per cent of voters. A special characteristic of the DMK and the AIADMK parties is that more than one-third of the voters are vehemently opposed to them. These parties have more opposers than supporters and sympathizers. Only four per cent of the voters oppose other parties. Thirteen per cent did not indicate any strong preference for any political party.

Thirty-seven per cent of the voters are strong supporters of Mrs Indira Gandhi and another fifteen per cent are her sympathizers. Thus a majority of the voters of Madras city are favourably disposed to her. In contrast to this, Mr M. G. Ramachandran, the leader of the AIADMK party, has the strong support of only nine per cent and the sympathy of another ten per cent of the voters of Madras city. More women than men support Mrs Gandhi as well as Mr M. G. Ramachandran.

Mr M. Karunanidhi is strongly supported by twenty per cent of the voters and has the sympathy of another twelve per cent. Fewer women support Mr Karunanidhi. For instance, in contrast to twenty-two per cent of men supporters, only fourteen per cent of the women strongly support him.

Eighteen per cent of the voters strongly support the Old Congress leader Mr P. Ramachandran and another fourteen per cent are his sympathizers.

What is the position of Mr Sanjay Gandhi ? Only four per cent of the voters sampled are his strong supporters and another fourteen per cent have a good opinion of him.

The results of the survey pertain only to the opinion of the voters of Madras city during the third week of February. They do not indicate the overall position in Tamil Nadu where there is a lot of regional variation.