NGO bagged election survey project through competitive bidding: Karnataka govt

As the ruling Congress in Karnataka flayed the survey which said 83.61% of respondents expressed their trust in EVMs and the electoral process during the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections in Karnataka, sources said the role of GRAAM, the NGO that conducted the survey, was strictly limited to conducting it, in accordance with the terms of reference, methodology, and ethical standards prescribed in the terms of reference issued by the Karnataka Monitoring and Evaluation Authority (KMEA), a State government agency under the Department of Planning, Programme Monitoring and Statistics.

The survey was commissioned by Karnataka’s Chief Electoral Office (CEO) through KMEA, and GRAAM, Mysuru-based NGO, bagged the project through a bidding process, having scored a high technical score by a committee of experts constituted by KMEA, said sources.

The report has since kicked up a political storm, with the BJP highlighting it to claim it demolishes Congress’s criticism of EC, while the Congress has said saffron’s party’s reading of the report was politically motivated and factually incorrect.

The GRAAM conducted the survey named “Lok Sabha Elections 2024: Evaluation of Endline Survey of Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) of Citizens”, where it said 83.61% of respondents who voted in the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections in Karnataka have shown a strong level of public trust in the electoral process and EVMs.

With regard to Dr R Balasubramaniam’s name mentioned by some Congress leaders, sources said that he is the founder of the organisation but has held no position or been involved with GRAAM in any capacity for several years now. Any attempt to attribute political motives on GRAAMs’ work is factually incorrect, added the source. GRAAM has done various studies for the State Government through KMEA (earlier known as KEA) and other departments as well. It assisted in developing vision documents and policy documents at different regimes, including the rapid assessment of Annabhagya in June 2014 and Nava Karnataka Vision 2025 (skill development and rural development sectors), to name a few, sources said.