While the respondents in this poll had little sympathy for proposals for doing away with all quotas and reservations, they showed a clear desire that the system should be improved to target the needy.

Given an option, a two-third majority favoured reservations on an economic criterion rather than use purely caste-based criterion. The idea of giving reservations to the poor finds favour with a majority of the SC/ST and OBC respondents as well.

This implicit critique of the government could have become a major issue if the media had generated more light than heat. The poll reveals a narrowing funnel of information: 79 per cent had heard about this controversy, 61 per cent had heard about the government decision, 42 per cent knew it is going to benefit only the OBCs and 36 per cent knew the decision was to apply only to higher educational institutions.

Taking everything into account, only 14 per cent of the respondents really knew what this controversy was all about. The political calculations of swinging the “vote banks” also do not seem to have materialised so far. Only 12 per cent of the respondents said their voting preference is likely to be influenced by this decision.

The ruling UPA appears to have an upper hand in the calculus of votes: it is more likely than the NDA to retain its old voters and to snatch voters from its opponents. But these are very small gains and the sample of this survey is too small to arrive at any definite conclusions in this regard.

... contd.