PM Narendra Modi, BJP popularity dips in India: Poll
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New Delhi: The Narendra Modi-led government continues to ride high on its popularity, even as the recent Gujarat election results jolted some nerves in the party.
If parliamentary polls were held now, Prime Minister Narendra Modi would easily secure another term although anti-incumbency is slowly catching up with him, a survey by ABP News-Lokniti-CSDS has predicted.
The survey has found that in the event of a Lok Sabha election in the country today, BJP-led NDA may get a total of 293-309 seats. This is 30 seats less than what NDA won in 2014 Lok Sabha Elections.
If NDA loses 30 seats out of 336 it won in 2014 elections, it means BJP may finish short of the majority mark of 272. In 2014 BJP won 282 seats, leading the NDA, which in total got 336 seats. The mood-of-the-nation survey also shows a steady rise in the United Progressive Alliance's (UPA) seat tally and the Congress's vote share.
In May 2017, a similar survey had predicted 331 seats for the BJP-led NDA alliance.
The slight dip in the BJP’s popularity seems to be benefitting the Congress party the most. According to the survey, UPA can get 127 seats and Others 115.
The survey says the Congress now has a 25 per cent vote share - up 4 points from May 2017 and 6 points from the 19 per cent it had tallied in 2014 general election. Its allies are projected to secure 5 per cent of the votes, a slight dip since May 2017’s survey.
Prime Minister Modi’s own personal popularity has also declined in the last eight months, although he continues to be the most popular leader by quite a distance. In May 2017, 44% of the voters had wanted him to return as prime minister in the event of a snap election. Now, the same figure is down by 7 percentage points to 37%.
The survey also shows that Rahul Gandhi’s popularity has gone up. Around 48% of respondents agree that Rahul Gandhi is competent to be the prime minister of the country. This is an 8% increase from the March 2014 pre-poll survey by Lokniti before the Lok Sabha elections that had found 40% of the respondents wanting Rahul Gandhi to be the prime minister.
The survey also concluded complete dissatisfaction with BJP government’s work is now at its highest in the last three years. 17% of respondents were fully dissatisfied with the BJP government; while 23% of the respondents were somewhat dissatisfied from the government, according to the survey. This is an increase from the 2017 survey when the numbers were at 15% and 12% respectively.
This dissatisfaction with Modi government’s performance has increased across all the regions.
The survey was conducted between January 7 and 20 across 175 parliamentary seats in 19 states. Of the 14,336 respondents, 51 per cent expressed satisfaction with the government's performance while 41 per cent said they were dissatisfied. In May 2017, 64 per cent were satisfied with the government's performance.
