About the Survey
A Pre-election Tracker Survey (the first round) was conducted in Gujarat by Lokniti, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi, for ABP News. The survey was conducted from August 9 through August 16, 2017 among 4090 voters in 200 locations (polling stations) spread across 50 assembly constituencies (the State has a total of 182 assembly constituencies). The sampling design adopted was Multi-stage random sampling. The assembly constituencies where the survey was conducted were randomly selected using the probability proportional to size method. Thereafter, four polling stations within each of the sampled constituencies were selected using the systematic random sampling method. Finally, the respondents were also randomly selected from the electoral rolls of the sampled polling stations.
Before going to the field for the survey, field investigators were imparted training about the survey method and interviewing techniques at a day-long training workshop held in Ahmedabad and Anand. The field investigators conducted face-to-face interviews of the respondents in Gujarati asking them a set of standardized questions. The duration of an interview was about 25 minutes. At some locations the non-availability of sampled respondents or difficulty in finding households necessitated replacements or substitutions.
The achieved raw sample is quite representative of Gujarat’s population profile. It has been weighted by gender, locality, religion, and caste group based on Census 2011. The poll has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 points. The error margin increases for cross-tabulations.
Profile of Achieved Sample in Gujarat
| Survey Sample (raw) (%) | Census 2011 (%) | |
| Scheduled Caste | 7.7 | 6.7 |
| Scheduled Tribe | 16.3 | 14.7 |
| Muslim | 10.1 | 9.7 |
| Women | 46.1 | 47.8 |
| Urban | 39.8 | 44.6 |
The fieldwork of the survey was coordinated by Mahashweta Jani (Researcher, Ahmedabad) and Dr. Bhanu Parmar (Associate Professor, Nalini-Arvind & T.V.Patel Arts College, Vallabh Vidyanagar, Anand district). The survey was designed and analysed by a team of researchers at Lokniti. The team included Dhananjay Kumar Singh, Himanshu Bhattacharya, Jyoti Mishra, Shreyas Sardesai and Vibha Attri. The survey was directed by Prof. Sanjay Kumar, Prof. Suhas Palshikar and Prof. Sandeep Shastri of Lokniti.
Survey details in a nutshell
| Conducted by | Lokniti-CSDS, for ABP News |
| Dates of fieldwork | Aug 9-16, 2017 |
| No. of Assembly Constituencies covered | 50 |
| No. of Polling Stations (Locations) covered | 200 |
| No. of interviews of voters conducted (Sample size) | 4090 |
| Overall Margin of Error | +/- 2.2 |
| Sampling method | Multi-stage random sampling |
| Fieldwork method | Standardized face-to-face interview in Gujarat |