Abstract:

Past studies have attempted the effect of various factors on the accuracy of opinion polls. In the area of pre-election poll alone researchers have studied the effects of question order (Crespi and Morris, 1984), late trend in voter preference (Day and Becker, 1984), disproportionate voter turn-out (Day and Becker, 1984), biasing pressures (Hennessy and Hennessy, 1961) and structural constraints (Shamir, 1986) on the accuracy of polls. This article attempts to study the effect of 'Rural' component on pre-election polls. In a country like India where nearly 80% of the population live in rural villages, it is very important to study the predictive ability of pre-election polls in rural areas as compared to that in urban areas.