New Delhi: The Narendra Modi-led government continues to ride high on itspopularity, even as the recent Gujarat election results jolted some nervesin the party.

If parliamentary polls were held now, Prime Minister Narendra Modi wouldeasily secure another term although anti-incumbency is slowly catching upwith him, a survey by ABP News-Lokniti-CSDS has predicted.

The survey has found that in the event of a Lok Sabha election in thecountry today, BJP-led NDA may get a total of 293-309 seats. This is 30seats 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 mayfinish 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 UnitedProgressive 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 NDAalliance.

The slight dip in the BJP’s popularity seems to be benefitting the Congressparty the most. According to the survey, UPA can get 127 seats and Others115.

The survey says the Congress now has a 25 per cent vote share – up 4 pointsfrom May 2017 and 6 points from the 19 per cent it had tallied in 2014general election. Its allies are projected to secure 5 per cent of thevotes, a slight dip since May 2017’s survey.

Prime Minister Modi’s own personal popularity has also declined in the lasteight months, although he continues to be the most popular leader by quitea distance. In May 2017, 44% of the voters had wanted him to return asprime minister in the event of a snap election. Now, the same figure isdown by 7 percentage points to 37%.

The survey also shows that Rahul Gandhi’s popularity has gone up. Around48% of respondents agree that Rahul Gandhi is competent to be the primeminister of the country. This is an 8% increase from the March 2014pre-poll survey by Lokniti before the Lok Sabha elections that had found40% of the respondents wanting Rahul Gandhi to be the prime minister.

The survey also concluded complete dissatisfaction with BJP government’swork is now at its highest in the last three years. 17% of respondents werefully dissatisfied with the BJP government; while 23% of the respondentswere somewhat dissatisfied from the government, according to the survey.This is an increase from the 2017 survey when the numbers were at 15% and12% respectively.

This dissatisfaction with Modi government’s performance has increasedacross all the regions.

The survey was conducted between January 7 and 20 across 175 parliamentaryseats in 19 states. Of the 14,336 respondents, 51 per cent expressedsatisfaction with the government’s performance while 41 per cent said theywere dissatisfied. In May 2017, 64 per cent were satisfied with thegovernment’s performance.