A C Nielsen predicts Con-NCP win in state

Four days after the Indian Express-NDTV-A C Nielson combine projected a sweeping win for the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the coming general election, A C Nielsen today said that the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) combine will win 31 out of the 48 Parliamentary constituencies in Maharashtra.

This was announced by Partha Rakshit, managing director of the market research agency A C Nielsen here today.

"Our own survey, conducted in the 288 assembly constituencies in Maharashtra in February and the first week of March, indicated 49 per cent of the voters decided in favour of the Congress-NCP, while 44 per cent favoured the Shiv Sena-BJP combine."

"This would translate into 31 seats for the former and 17 Lok Sabha seats for the latter," he said.

According to the new survey, 80 per cent of the voters had already decided about who they would vote for, while 20 per cent were yet to make up their mind.

Rakshit added that this survey, distinct from the one for collecting field data for the Indian Express-NDTV combine, had taken a sample size of 73,000 voters through 33,000 interviews in 350 towns and over 40,000 interviews in 1,300 villages

Responding to queries about the survey conducted for the Indian Express-NDTV combine he said: "AC Nielsen had only conducted the field work for Indian Express-NDTV survey. There are three segments to a political survey, methodology, ground work and interpretation of the data.

"We were commissioned by the two media organisations only to conduct the field work. The design (methodology) and interpretation were done by the Indian Express and NDTV."