News18 Mega Opinion Poll: How India's biggest opinion survey was conducted

The poll covers 21 major states that account for 95% all the Lok Sabha constituencies in the country.

News18 is set to unveil India’s largest opinion poll to gauge the pulse of voters before the Lok Sabha elections due by May.

The News18’s Mega Opinion poll, to be released on March 13 and 14, covers 21 major states that account for 95% of all the Lok Sabha constituencies in the country. The fieldwork was carried out from February 12 to March 1.

The results of the News18 Mega Opinion Poll will be broadcast across all 20 News18 network channels, including News18 India, CNN-News18 and News18 regional channels, in 16 languages. The results will also be released on News18’s 16 websites and Moneycontrol.com.

The survey spanned all Lok Sabha constituencies across 21 states, totalling 518 seats, with 210 interviews conducted with eligible voters in each constituency.

Notably, the survey has achieved a massive sample size of over 1.18 lakh respondents across various demographic backgrounds, making it India’s biggest opinion poll.

Here's a detailed methodology followed by News18 Poll Hub for the survey:

Instrument

A structured questionnaire was used to conduct the interviews.
The questionnaire was translated into 11 regional languages relevant to the states being covered.

Sampling

• In each Lok Sabha constituency 3 vidhan sabha constituencies were covered.
• In each vidhan sabha constituency 5 polling booths were selected via random sampling.
• Personal face-to-face interviews were conducted at homes selected via random sampling.
• The respondents were selected systematically following the right-hand rule Only one eligible respondent per household was interviewed.
• CAPI (Computer-Aided-Personal Interview) Interviews were conducted using a structured questionnaire.

Fieldwork for the study was carried out by trained investigators belonging to various field work agencies. Each field work agency was given 2-3 states to cover. Ten field work agencies were used in this survey.

Quality Checks

• Before going into the field, the field teams were briefed in detail about the sampling plan, respondent's selection, questions to be asked, comprehension issues, etc. Multiple sessions of briefing were done so that no doubts or confusion are there at the time of field work.
• Senior Field Manager and Executives travelled into the field to do the on-spot quality checks to ensure that work was being done properly. The supervisors were in constant touch with the field manager to report status and to seek clarifications when required.
• Every interview was geo-tagged to ensure that it happened where it was supposed to happen
• Each completed interview was checked for duration, time of interview, data consistency, etc.
• Telephonic back checks was done for 20% of the sample in each state.