ABP-CVoter Opinion Poll: The assembly poll bugle has been blown in Karnataka as the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Wednesday, March 29, announced that the state will go to elections on May 10, and the counting of votes will take place on May 13. Congress, JDS, BJP and other political parties are in high gear as the last state assembly elections produced a fractured verdict and a post-poll alliance saw the Congress retaining power with the help of the JDS as a partner. This was later flipped, with multiple defections and then bypolls resulting in BJP wresting power.
As another Karnataka legislative assembly election nears, ABP News in association with CVoter conducted an opinion poll to gauge the public mood this time around. A number of questions were asked to thousands of respondents to understand the ground situation in Karnataka.
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Here is the response to a few of the questions asked in ABP-CVoter Karnataka Opinion Poll 2023.
Q. How do you rate the performance of the current BJP state government?
A. Nearly 50.5% of the respondents of the ABP-CVoter Survey gave a 'Poor' rating to the current BJP government led by Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, which 27.7% of the respondents felt that the BJP government can be rated 'Good'. The rest of the 21.8% gave it an 'Average' rating.
Q. Which is the most important issue for you at present?
A. Respondents chose unemployment as the most important current issue in Karnataka. Nearly 29.1% of the respondents feel that unemployment is the main issue ahead of the upcoming Karnataka Assembly Poll 2023. Civic issues such as the status of electricity, water and roads in the state are listed as the second main issue with 21.5% of the respondents saying so. The status of education facilities is also a major issue as 19% of the respondents made it the third biggest issue ahead of the state polls, while 12.7% of the respondents of the ABP-CVoter survey feel that the current government has control over corruption.
Only 1.2% of respondents feel that national issues like CAA, NRC or NPR matter ahead of the upcoming Karnataka polls, while only 2.9% are worried about issues such as the law & order situation or women's security.
The Covid-induced pandemic factors as an issue only with 4% of the respondents, while farmer's or agriculture-related issues matter for 3.5% of the respondents.
Q. Are you angry with the state government led by BJP & do you want to change it?
A. The current BJP government is not favoured by the public as per ABP News-CVoter Karnataka Opinion Poll 2023. An overwhelmingly 57.1% of the respondents said that they are angry and want to change the government, while 25.8 respondents said that they are angry with the BJP government but do not want to change it. Only 17.1% of voters said that they are not angry with the government and don't want it to change.
Q. Which of these factors do you think will significantly affect the upcoming assembly elections in Karnataka?
A. The respondents of the ABP-CVoter Opinion Poll feel that polarisation and minority status for Lingayats will remain the big factors that can impact the Karnataka legislative assembly election. Over 30.8% of respondents feel that issues like minority status for Lingayats and the Hijab controversy are the biggest factor in the polls, followed by religious polarisation at 24.8%. Cauvery Water Dispute is also a big factor as per respondents, with 14.6% considering it so in the upcoming polls, and 13.3% of the respondents feel the performance of the current state government is a major factor.
The issue of nationalism and identity politics factors at 6.8% and recent cases of serial murders are a factor to 6.1% of the ABP-CVoter respondents.
The Aam Aadmi Party contesting in the 2023 Karnataka Assembly elections is only on the radar of 3.5% of the respondents as a factor to impact voting.
[Disclaimer: The present opinion poll/ survey was conducted by CVoter from February 26 to March 26. The methodology used is CATI interviews of adult (18+) respondents with random numbers drawn from standard RDD and the sample size for the same is 24,759 across Karnataka. The same is also expected to have a margin of error of ±3 to ±5% and may not necessarily have factored in all criteria.]