AAP raises hue and cry over electorate survey by private firm hired by SAD

CHANDIGARH: Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) has raised hue and cry over an alleged politically motivated and illegitimate survey of electorate in Bholath assembly constituency being conducted by a Gurgaon based private company Leadtech Management Consulting (P) Ltd.
Sukhpal Singh Khaira, Chief Spokesman of AAP Punjab today filed a complaint with the Election Commission of India objecting to illegal survey which will hinder free and fair elections in Punjab. The company would provide the data to ruling party, the Shiromani Akali Dal(SAD), he alleged.
In his complaint Khaira that the above stated Leadtech Management Consulting (P) Ltd. is conducting a very intensive house to house survey, to find out the views of the voters of 26- Bholath assembly segment, besides collecting voluminous data.
As per information provided to me by many Sarpanches and respectables of my constituency, a team of more than 100 young employees of the said company are visiting each and every home of all the polling stations of 26 – Bholath and are coercing the voters to divulge complete details of their families. Normally such companies conduct a survey based on 2-3% sample size of the voters but in this case the
survey is being conducted upon 100 % voters of 26-Bholath constituency.
The said survey teams are enquiring about the caste of the voters, about their religion, about preference of the party and the candidate they would prefer to vote in 2017 elections and are also pressurising every voter to give their mobile numbers to them. It has also come to my knowledge, that all the employees of the survey teams are guests of the local Akali MLA Bibi Jagir Kaur, at her native village Begowal, district Kapurthala.
Khaira said that it was pertinent to mention here, that the survey teams are specifically asking each voter about their choice for Aam Aadmi Party and Sukhpal Singh Khaira. On receiving complaints from the voters of my area, I called up Mr. Vivek Singh Director of the said company based at Gurgaon on his office landline number 0124-4113384, to find out the purpose of the said survey and the credentials of the company. Mr. Vivek Singh admitted that the said team of young employees had been assigned the task to undertake the survey in a very detailed manner. But he refused to disclose as to which party, person or a media house was getting the said survey done. He also admitted to the fact, that like 26 – Bholath assembly segment, the said company was conducting a similar intensive election survey in 15 assembly segments of Punjab, 5 each in Malwa, Doaba and Majha.
AAP leader said that it appears that the said company has passed on the complete data collected by them to the ruling party leaders, as I have received number of complaints from the voters that after the survey team had collected their data, they are now being pressurised by the local MLA Bibi Jagir Kaur and her team of Sarpanches and Jathedars, as to why they are opting to vote for Aam Aadmi Party and Sukhpal Singh Khaira in the ensuing elections. The voters are being threatened, intimidated and coerced to make a commitment to vote for the ruling SAD-BJP combine in 2017 polls.