Rahul Gandhi’s popularity waning post Pulwama terror attack: Survey

Congress President Rahul Gandhi (Getty Images)

New Delhi: Congress President Rahul Gandhi’s popularity has taken a hit after Narendra Modi took over the prime minister’s chair in 2014. Gandhi, who took complete charge of the Congress party in December 2017, found the maximum support of 26% in January, 2019, the latest edition of ABP News'opinion poll has found. Our survey in 2015 saw him garnering support of merely 13% of the respondents which gradually kept fading until 2017. On January 1, 2019, Gandhi’s popularity graph rose to 26%, according to the popularity index. The survey has revealed that on February 14, 2019, on the day of Pulwama attack, Gandhi had the support of 23%. But the figure significantly receded to 16% as seen on March 7. The slump in the period between February 14 to March 7 can perhaps be attributed to the Congress demanding the proof of India’s air strikes and subsequently being besieged by Modi’s charge that the erstwhile party is weakening the morale of the armed forces. In our first part of the survey, it was observed that PM Modi’s popularity graph has spiked to 62% which was close to 50% at the time of Pulwama terror attack. ( ALSO READ: Is PM Modi still popular? All questions answered here ) (The sample size achieved was 50,740)